Where We Are Supposed to Be
by Lady Elena Dawson
Summary: Nobody said it was easy. And for Aria and Ezra, getting to where they are now had its many ups and downs. Future fic.
1. Prologue

**A/N: I'm planning to update this every two weeks on a Sunday. If you have any feedback, I would love to hear it! I do not own PLL.**

**Where We Are Supposed to Be**

**Summary:** Nobody said it was easy. And for Aria and Ezra, getting to where they are now had many ups and downs. Future fic.

**Prologue**

_June 2012_

"Tomorrow's the big day," Ezra Fitz announced as he fell back on his couch in his dimly lit apartment, a bowl of steaming popcorn in his hands. Next to him Aria Montgomery flinched as a few popped corn pieces were jerked out of the bowl by Ezra's careless plop, and then picked one up and threw it in her mouth. He handed the bowl to her and propped his feet up on the coffee table. "You officially made it."

It was the night before Aria's high school graduation, and she had called up Ezra last minute asking if he wanted to hang out for a bit and watch a movie. Of course, Ezra couldn't say no; their relationship had slowly been rebuilding from the catastrophic events from months ago, and Ezra had been eager to spend as much time with her as possible without seeming like a possessive helicopter boyfriend. Though he knew they had plenty of time in the future, Ezra still wanted her just as much now.

Aria munched on some of the popcorn and untucked her legs from under her, placing them over Ezra's legs instead. She put the bowl on the table and laid back to stare at the ceiling thoughtfully. "God, I can't believe it's finally over," she whispered, more to herself than anybody else. Ezra, his fingers tracing the skin of Aria's knee, watched as her eyes glazed over and she zoned out. He knew exactly what she meant by "it": A, the Alison mystery, all the deaths in Rosewood from the past two years. With countless accounts and interviews, Ezra realized he had more than he originally thought, and the answers had been hidden under the surface the entire time. And with Spencer, Hanna, Emily, and Aria's help, they were able to put to rest everything that had been torturing them for too long. Unfortunately, the truth was more painful than the lies, and the girls were devastated to learn that their undead best friend was too good to be true. After all, she loved to play games, and people never really do change, especially when they've snapped and flushed away their sanity long ago.

Throughout those weeks of recovery and detective work, Aria had found herself frequenting Ezra's apartment more than any of the other girls. Sometimes she didn't even come because Ezra couldn't reach a book on his shelf without tearing out his stitches or the girls were sleuthing some more, but just because she needed someone else to share coffee with. She was also grateful he was alive, and the incident had shaken her so much she wanted to spend as much time with him and her friends and family as possible.

After the silence was prolonged for long enough, Ezra grabbed her legs and dragged them so that her torso was closer to him. She scooted up into a sitting position and avoided his eyes. "We probably need to talk about New York, huh?" she muttered.

His thumb grazed across her knee comfortingly. "Not tonight," he whispered. "Not if it makes you unhappy."

"No, it doesn't. At all!" Aria quickly protested. "It's just… It's different. Three months from now we'll be moving into our own place, with nothing but a mattress on the floor and a bunch of unpacked boxes. This apartment will be gone and so will Rosewood. It's exciting yet…sad."

Ezra managed to pull her even closer to the point she was practically in his lap. "Think of this: It's a chilly summer night, we have no heating…"

"…So we huddle under the blankets and tell funny stories to keep us warm," Aria finished for him, her nose wrinkling. "I know. You've told me this before. It's so cheesy I'm cringing while I'm saying it."

"Well, who says we have to talk to each other? Wouldn't less talking not just warm the room, but fire it up?"

Aria smirked at his suggestiveness and checked the time on her phone. Sadly for Ezra, she slid off the warm couch, shivering in the new cold. "It's past eleven," she sighed nonchalantly, strode to his dresser, and opened one of his drawers. "I'm staying here tonight."

"Seriously?" Ezra spoke nervously. She hadn't stayed overnight since she was taking care of him after the bullet injury.

"Yeah," Aria said surely, then pulled out a tattered Hollis t-shirt. "And I'm borrowing one of your shirts. They go down to my knees anyway."

Again, Ezra was baffled when Aria pulled her shirt over her head and her sweatpants down her legs, not even bothering going into the bathroom. "Um," he mumbled, clearly struggling. "B-but what about your dad?"

Aria kicked her pants aside and winked at Ezra. "He doesn't have to know I'm staying here. That's what Spencer is for."

"Er…" Ezra forced himself to turn away as she continued changing. "Okay then. I'm fine with that."

A minute later Aria rounded the couch and fell on his lap, legs crossed, shirt hem inching up her thigh, her arms comfortably wrapping around his neck. Naturally her fingers ran from the nape of his neck to under the neck of his shirt. "Why so flustered, Mr. Fitz?"

Ezra grinned broadly and laughed lightly. "I-I'm not," he stammered, looking away from her doe eyes for a second. "I'm just surprised by your boldness, that's all. It's been a while since I've seen it in something other than your wardrobe."

"Oh," Aria said, uncrossing her legs and standing up before padding behind the couch. "If that's all, then I'll be more reserved."

"No, no, I wasn't saying that was a bad thing," Ezra proclaimed as she strutted to the bed and laid on top of it, missing the comfort of a night's sleep under its covers. "I…I like it. In fact, I've missed it."

"Is that so?" Aria sighed, continuing her act. "Sorry to disappoint, but we're not getting frisky tonight."

"Is that so?" he repeated her words, quietly getting up and approaching her. He then jumped on the bed next to her and trapped her between his arms, propped above her, before she could move. "I'm okay with that, too."

For a moment Aria just stared at Ezra hovering over her, her hand reaching out to brush aside a loose black curl from his forehead. The mood that was so playful before instantaneously changed to something much darker in Aria's eyes. "I was so scared I was going to lose you," she finally whispered, her hand moving down his cheek. The teasing smile disappeared from his face, and her eyes turned a murky brown color. "I didn't realize how much I still wanted you until you were almost gone." She paused, and he stayed silent, not sure what there was to say anymore about the subject. "Every day I wake up and I'm sograteful that wasn't the end."

"Yeah," Ezra replied while leaning forward and pressing his forehead against hers. "Me too." With that, he kissed her, an unsatisfyingly short gesture, then kissed her again. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down with her, and he fell on his side, her face buried deep in the crook of his neck. After a few minutes of just staying in that comfortable space in time, Aria broke it for a second. "Don't do that again," she cried, and he held her tightly. "Don't try to be a hero."

He stayed silent for a second, then whispered "I never was." And he was certain of it. He didn't ambush A because he was being a hero: he attacked A because he had to protect her—and them—just like she would have protected him if the scenario was reversed. Besides, being the hero was better in a fantasy than in reality. He didn't even think of himself as a hero until he woke up after a couple days in the hospital and Aria had called him one; none of them had had the guts to jump in front of a gun. And even after that he still hadn't accepted Aria's praising words as his own. Now, after they embraced the moment for a while longer, he scooped her up into his arms and pulled back the covers so that they could get some sleep, placing her rightfully on her side of the bed—the right side, of course—and he couldn't imagine being anywhere else.

…

The next morning, Ezra woke up to an empty bed, and pondered for the following five minutes after awaking if last night had been a dream. However, a clickand a shuffle resonated from the bathroom, and Ezra laid back in the pillows in satisfaction, now wondering why he'd been so confused in the first place.

Struggling out of bed, stiff joints and all, Ezra peered into the bathroom and was wonderfully surprised. "Wow," he exclaimed as Aria was putting some final touches on with an eyeliner pencil. Somehow on her own—Ezra just had to mention—she'd swept her hair up into a messy, elegant bun and had it pinned impeccably, and her makeup was stunning, definitely graduation-worthy. "What did I do to deserve waking up to this?"

Aria smirked and snapped the cap back on the eyeliner. "It's not for you, Mr. Modest. I thought I told you I was graduating today from prison."

"Oh, maybe you did mention something like that," he dragged on the joke. Then he looked around, searching for something. "How the heck did you do all that to your face when there's nothing even here?"

With her foot Aria kicked open a cabinet drawer and out plopped a bag stuffed with hair pins, makeup, tampons, a curling iron, and a lone bottle of shampoo—things Ezra wouldn't dare touch, mostly because he had no need for them, and partially because it was Aria's personal possessions. "I stashed it there in case of emergency," she admitted, "but then it became something normal." She waved her hand and pushed him out the door. "Now, make coffee while I get dressed."

Before she closed it Ezra managed to squeeze in a "You had no problem changing out here last night," but Aria, sadly, didn't respond to his sly comment. Sighing, he brewed a fresh cup of coffee and waited.

When he finally heard the sound of the bathroom door opening, Ezra didn't notice he'd been holding his breath. First he saw her foot, elevated by a three-inch heel, and he almost choked on his coffee by how complimentary the strapless dress was that she had chosen. Spencer had great taste, he had to admit, since Aria had mentioned she'd went shopping with her friend. She stepped out with her hands raised above her shoulders, fixing a loose pin, and before Ezra had any clue what he was doing he said, "Stay right there."

Dropping her hands to her sides and then clasping them in front of her, Aria watched curiously as Ezra grabbed the Rolleiflex camera from the coffee table and raised it to his eye, pointed at her. At first he only stared through the tiny opening and wound up the film, enjoying the beauty through the lens, of Aria shifting the weight of her feet into a comfortable posing position and smiling brightly as soon as she realized what he was doing. Then he snapped a picture and heard the film roll inside. "What was that for?" Aria asked him, taking a step forward. She enjoyed more than he could imagine being his muse and, in occasions like this when he had a sudden taste for photography, model.

"Wait," Ezra barked out, and Aria paused in place. He snapped another picture. "Would you look at that?" he finally said, and Aria was relieved to move again. "Another perfect picture."

"Is this another photoshoot?" Aria teased, padding to the kitchen, grabbing the coffee pot, and pouring herself a mug.

Again, Ezra took a picture just as she was about to put the rim to her lips. "Hey!" she protested, then laughed. "That was probably a horrible picture. I was in action."

"Just capturing memories," Ezra reasoned, though Aria shook her head in disbelief, so he elaborated, "Today is _huge_. And you look good, so there's no harm in capturing that too, right?" He tried to take another picture but nothing happened; not a single noise emitted from the contraption. "Aw, man," he whined.

"Ha!" Aria slammed her mug on the counter. "I broke the camera," she joked, followed by a dramatic pause. "Or the film ran out." As he frowned at the sad conclusion to his fun, Aria rolled her eyes and decided to randomly point out while picking up her mug, "Gosh, you've been so sappy lately!"

With raised eyebrows, Ezra set the camera on the table. "Is there a problem with that?"

"No," Aria mumbled. "It's just…when you're super happy, you turn into some gooey romantic, and when I'm super happy, I turn frisky." Pausing to gulp down some coffee, she quickly added afterwards, "And in the end, which one is more fun?"

Ezra blinked and narrowed his eyes, uncertain. "Am I supposed to answer that question or…?"

"No, it was rhetorical!" Aria scoffed. She grabbed the camera on the counter and placed it gently in her bag, stating, "I'll get these developed sometime this week." Next, she checked the clock and shrugged on her black cardigan, suddenly in a hurry. "Crap," she swore under breath, "I was supposed to be at Spencer's house ten minutes ago."

Of course, per usual since their explosive breakup, Ezra wasn't expecting a parting hug or kiss from her as she scrambled out the door, scolding herself. "This is what you get for wearing nice clothes, Aria," she berated. "You distract your boyfriend and then you don't graduate."

Ezra, still in his pajamas, was already missing her company even though she hadn't passed through the door yet. "See you later!" Aria finally cried out, breathless, and closed the door right after Ezra achieved to yell out his own departing words. The apartment was encased in silence, and Ezra noted the disheveled couch, bed, coffee table, and, evidently (because Aria had used it to get ready), bathroom.

While he sighed, slunk out of his chair, and began some light cleaning, he couldn't help but think about how much nicer it was sharing the mess with someone else, especially after it had been so long since he'd had her overnight company.

...

Ten minutes before the ceremony was to start, Aria and Hanna were squeezing past their peers to their seats that had magically ended up next to each other. (Lack of last names that started with M, they'd guessed, because they didn't really know their class that well at all.) Both were cringing at the distasteful hats and robes they had to wear, the only article of clothing keeping them sane the gorgeous dresses underneath—and their high-heeled shoes. Aria was in the process of fixing the hat on her head, her nose crinkled in disgust, while Hanna was smoothing out a couple wrinkles in the cheap robe. "God, I don't think I've ever worn something so cheap and gaudy since the seventh grade," Hanna complained.

In unison they sat down and crossed their right legs over their lefts. "I don't even think I can walk up there in this," Aria joined in the series of complaints. "And it doesn't help that my parents, Mike, and Ezra are here."

"Wait, your parents are here and so is Ezra?" Hanna gaped, then searched for a nonexistent policeman. "Should I call security?"

"Hey," Aria objected. "My dad's been a lot more accept— Actually, no, he hasn't been."

The two elapsed into a silence that would have been awkward if it wasn't for their close friendship. Hanna, sensing Aria's souring mood, put a friendly arm around her shoulder. "Come here," she cooed, then squeezed her tightly in a hug. "Aw, look at us, graduating in these ugly gowns!" Aria tried to pry Hanna off, but it was no use; the girl was clinging on until Principal Hackett announced on stage for everyone to settle down.

After the ceremony had ended and Hanna, Aria, Emily, and Spencer—along with Paige and Caleb—had successfully accepted their diplomas, there was a reception in the school lobby. Spencer instantly found Toby, almost tackling him in a hug, and her parents and sister; Emily held Paige's hand while looking for her parents; and Hanna was leaning her head on Caleb's shoulder in the corner, the two just chilling out while waiting for Ashley to find them. Meanwhile, Aria was anxious, wanting to find her family but worried that Ezra would find her at the same time and an awkward run-in would ensue. She still hadn't told her parents of the job offer Ezra had been awarded from a private high school in New York, or the idea that they were ditching Pennsylvania together. When she finally caught a glimpse of her parents, she was about to push through the crowd but was stopped by a hand on her arm.

Whirling around, she came face-to-face with Ezra, a rose in his hand. "I was thinking of a bouquet," he said smoothly, as though he had rehearsed his sappy, romantic lines in the mirror, "but then I thought this would look nicer." With that, he tucked the flower with its shortened stem behind her ear, and then let the tips of his fingers tenderly trace down her jawline to her chin. One corner of his mouth turned up into a half-smile. "I was right."

"This might just be my wrong intuition talking, but admit it." Aria batted her eyelashes innocently and took a step forward, her face rather close to his. She leaned forward and whispered in his ear, "You want me to stay over more often, like the old days." With that, she tugged on his tie playfully, murmuring, "The flower was a nice touch," and before she could smoothly slip away into the crowd he grasped her hand and tucked a note into her palm. She swiftly clasped it and continued walking, not acknowledging him any further than she already had, the tease she was.

After slowing down to a stop in the middle of the bustling students and parents, Aria unfolded the paper and smirked at what was written. _7 tonight, _it read. _Have a surprise for you. _

"Hey, Aria." Instantly Aria crumbled the note and turned around, hands in fists behind her back, and speedily smiled like nothing had made her skin flush and mood lighten, and instead it was just her boring graduation day. Hanna, Spencer, and Emily approached her, their arms linked and also out of their graduation robes. "We were looking for you!" Hanna exclaimed, grabbing Aria's hand and jumping up and down excitedly. "Spencer's parents said we can borrow their lake house tonight! Isn't that great?"

"Wow, couldn't keep that a secret for one more second, could you, Hanna?" Spencer joked, rolling her eyes.

A cold, slimy sensation scampered across Aria's skin. "Oh," she said as her mouth turned dry. Ezra's surprise was tonight as well. Realizing she should be more upbeat about it, she squeezed Hanna's hand and joined their linked arms. "That's great!"

The inseparable four started walking towards the doors, their last day in Rosewood High School coming to an end. "To think this is our first sleepover as out-of-high-school women," Emily sighed.

"No, Em," Hanna whined. "You're going to make me cry again."

As they reached the exit, Aria felt drawn to look to the right, and there stood Ezra, probably also on his way out until another teacher had flagged him down. The corner of her glossed lip quivered into a half-smile, and she lifted her free right hand ever so slightly and curled her fingers in a goodbye gesture. It was barely noticeable, but it was only for Ezra.

By the way he grinned back subtly, Aria knew he had seen it.

…

"So, what should we watch?" Hanna mused out loud. "Romantic comedy, drama, horror…"

"We should pick something random and just go with it," Emily suggested while Spencer came back and sat next to Aria, freshly microwaved popcorn in a bowl in her hand. Aria immediately stuck her hand in the bowl and munched on the kernels, whining to Spencer, "I'm starving."

"Well, don't hog the popcorn!" Spencer scolded the small woman as she took out a handful and stuffed it in her mouth. When Aria went in to grab more, Spencer smacked her hand away. "No. There's perfectly good food in the pantry that doesn't need to be shared."

"But Spence," Aria complained, "I'm craving vegan right now, and your family does not buy vegan. You know how before that time of month you get weird cravings? It's like you're pregnant but you're not?"

"Oh my gosh, I'm having those too!" Emily piped up. "We must be spending too much time together. We're totally syncing up."

"Ew, no, Em." Hanna's nose crinkled in disgust. "Who needs four hormonal women at the same time?"

"It's scientifically proven that—," Spencer began, but was interrupted by Hanna.

"No, Spence, we don't need your smart talk. Believe me, I know, there's only estrogen under my roof." Hanna then squinted her eyes at Spencer. "How does your dad handle all of that—"

"Okay, are we done?" Spencer spoke up before Hanna could finish. "We should be watching a movie, not talking about periods. Thanks, Aria."

After Aria swallowed the popcorn in her mouth, she told Hanna, "I don't know about Spencer's house, but when my mom was living with us Mike would almost go insane because—"

"Oh. My. God," Spencer muttered under breath, and Aria continued, "My mom would be all snappy and I would get all emotional about every single thing, so one time Ezra sent me this sweet text while he was away in New York that said, 'Thinking of you,' or something equally cliché, and I just started crying and Mike asked me what was wrong and I showed him the text and then I ordered him to get me the ice cream carton in the freezer along with the Advil bottle and when he told me no I threw the pillow at him—"

"I think I heard this story," Hanna thought aloud, but Aria kept talking as though she hadn't said anything.

"He warned me not to watch the sad movie, but you know what, I wanted to watch the sad movie, and he had to deal with my sobs for the rest of the day and it was just hysterical, he almost lost it!" Sighing, Aria finished the short, random tale, and ate more popcorn, quickly adding, "And he never knew I was faking most of it just to drive him crazy." The girls blinked at each other, ending that conversation

"So," Hanna squealed excitedly. "What's everyone doing over the summer?"

"Well, so far I have nothing huge planned, but Ezra got Toby and I free tickets to see _Wicked _at his family's theater, and get this—he's letting us use his _box seats_!" Spencer exclaimed as Emily and Hanna joined in with shouts of excitement for Spencer.

"I know!" Spencer shrieked enthusiastically. "Just me and Toby, the whole box just to ourselves…"

"Wait a minute," Aria spoke up through the deafening chatter. The three girls glanced at her, their faces flushed from the hyper moment. "But those are _our _seats."

"We're not taking your darned seats, Aria, we're just borrowing them." Spencer smirked and playfully punched Aria's shoulder with her own. "But yours, huh? You used 'our.'" Aria blushed.

"Ooh, she's blushing!" Hanna squealed. "There's something you're not telling us. Spill it!"

"Fine, fine," Aria sighed, not wanting to get into something she couldn't pull out of. "Remember that time we were in New York and we were all dressed up to go out and I asked you guys if you could cover for me, no questions asked? Well…"

There was a chorus of "mm-hmms" and Aria reluctantly said, "In plain terms, Ezra took me on a date and surprised me with the box seats, and afterwards we went to a hotel and you guys didn't see me until the morning."

"Oh my…," Hanna began, but couldn't finish, she was so shocked. "Why couldn't you tell us that? We would have been cool with it."

"I _did _tell you guys, but you were a little hung over, remember? I didn't think I needed to bring it up again."

Emily and Hanna glanced at each other and burst into laughter, and Spencer's nose crinkled in disgust. "You guys just sat in those seats, right? I don't have to warn Toby that something scandalous went on when—"

"Spence! No! The most that happened is I leaned my head on his shoulder and held his hand. There wasn't even any kissing. Jeez, get your mind out of the gutter." Aria took this as an opportunity to sneak more popcorn, but Spencer wasn't paralyzed and slapped her hand again. As revenge Aria snapped, "I lied, we shared a kiss at intermission!" and Spencer again wrinkled her nose.

"Was it a nice hotel room?" Hanna questioned, coaxing more information out of Aria, but Spencer put a halt to the conversation.

"I'm sure it was _lovely_, Han. Now, I have the perfect question: What's everyone doing _after _summer?"

"Easy," Hanna scoffed. "I'm going to the fashion institute, remember?"

"But I'm not just talking about college," Spencer said, wiggling her eyebrows. "I'm talking about boys."

"Well, hopefully I'm still doing Caleb, but—"

"Okay, obviously my wording wasn't great, _so_ I'm just going to simply ask if anyone has plans with their significant other for when they go to college. For example, though I am going to Carnegie Mellon—which I have Ezra to thank for helping me with my college essays after the UPenn disaster, so I'm still going prestigious—Toby's business is close by so we'll be able to see each other frequently."

Again everyone chattered in exhilaration for their friend. It was wonderful for the girls to be able to talk about their futures without A lurking around anymore.

The room was quiet for a few seconds while everyone got lost in their content thoughts, and Aria spoke up next, her skin flushed red. "Ezra got the job in New York," she blurted out, "and the plan is to rent out our own apartment to live together." Spencer's eyes practically bugged out and she had a look on her face that said, "Ex_cuse _me?"

"But…but…," Spencer said despairingly. "You've known about this…and you didn't tell me?"

A bit embarrassed, Aria bit her lip and nodded her head, knowing that she figuratively broke Spencer's heart. "I'm sorry, Spence. I wasn't sure how to tell you, knowing you don't always approve of my taboo ways…"

"No, Aria, that's awesome!" Hanna chimed, clasping her hands together. "My only concern is for your poor father's heart."

"Seriously, what are you going to tell your parents?" Emily asked, and Aria shook her head. "I don't know yet. I think they have a hunch, though. If I had a boyfriend my own age, they probably wouldn't have to be concerned that he would follow me. But Ezra has connections there. It wasn't that difficult."

"Wow," Spencer said, surprised, then furrowed her eyebrows. "I don't know why I'm shocked."

"I'm surprised that you're surprised," Hanna murmured. "They're practically animals."

"Hanna!" Emily berated her, and Hanna replied, "What? What did I say? Did I not just state a fact?"

And that was the end of that awkward conversation, too.

So the girls moved on to lighter topics, such as reminiscing about their high school years. "Spence, remember when you dared Aria to ask Noel on a date, and she ended up asking him if he wanted to go on a date with _you_?" Hanna snickered, bringing up a memory from freshman year.

"How can I forget? Noel gave me this weirded-out look and walked away. I was so mortified!" She slapped Aria's arm. "And it's all your fault!"

"Hey, I just wanted to shake things up, do the unexpected, so I turned the tables on you," Aria teased, snacking on the next batch of popcorn.

"I avoided him for the rest of the year," Spencer laughed, "though I couldn't avoid him at his Halloween party."

"Ugh, don't get me started on that party! I was fat Britney, remember?"

"How can I_ not _remember? I spent hours on my costume! And Aria only spent two seconds on hers, and she still looked better than me," Spencer commented.

"It's not like it was hard. I was so goth back then, I had enough black clothes to make, like, _twenty _witch costumes!"

"Witches don't have pink hair," Emily teased, and Aria rolled her eyes, wondering why she ever dyed her hair an unnatural hue to begin with. "That's what the wig was for," Aria stated.

"Those were the bad old days," Hanna sighed sarcastically, though her smile faded off. "We were all so lost, we let Ali drag us around. I guess somehow we thought she would help us find ourselves, that maybe popularity was our thing instead of being outsiders."

"I remember when she first spoke to me, in seventh grade," Aria said, reminiscing. She drew her knees up to her chest and gulped away the lump in her throat. "She said she liked my drawing and wondered if I could draw a portrait of her. It surprised me, really. Not many people acknowledged me. Holden had moved away, so I had no friends. It's like no one knew I was there. Even with my pink hair."

"I was a loser, too," Hanna continued. "Mona and I would spend hours watching bad TV shows and eating a whole tray of cookies. Sadly, I ate most of them. And then Ali talked to me; she said she liked my jacket. Said it was something her new friend Aria would wear. She asked me to sit with her at lunch, and Aria was there, awkwardly poking at her food. Neither of us was comfortable or even sure why Ali picked us, but we were in such awe of her that we just went with it."

"I knew Alison for a long time," Spencer spoke up next. "We all did. But I was the only one brave enough to compete with her, to try and always win against her. We used to compete over everything, and she was the one who always won, smooth and collected while I just lost it and called myself a failure. That's why I was surprised when she talked to me at lunch one day and said she wanted a truce for a war she didn't even remember starting. And that's how I met you guys."

Emily replied last. "Since the fifth grade, I had a crush on Ali. I followed her around and complimented her on everything. She liked playing with me, I knew that, but I just let her do it because in a sick way, I liked that she was leading me on. I guess I thought one day she'd stop playing around and be real. And one day I took that leap and sat with her at lunch, a bit curious to when Ali had picked out new friends to share. She said she was proud of my bravery and that I completed the group. I remember we all looked at each other with these bewildered expressions, excited yet terrified that we had been chosen. There were two ways our friendship with Ali could have gone: She would have either brought us up, or torn us apart."

"At first I thought she was actually helping me," Hanna spat bitterly. "But she started poking fun at my weight. I lost myself even more than before, and then the bulimia started. Every time I threw up… I just thought of Ali taunting me with that horrible nickname. Hefty Hanna."

"Ali called all of us terrible things," Spencer said, trying to make Hanna feel less alone. "Especially after my drug addiction, she kept calling me Speed Freak, and the worst part is that she would whisper it with this smile on her face like she was going to tell someone at any moment."

"One time I was excited that my short story was being published in this book collection and Ali looked me straight in the face and said, 'Sweetie, don't you get it? Paper and ink don't prove anything. You're nothing. A nobody. No one even knew your name until I picked you.'"

"Ali didn't have to call me anything. Her leading me on was enough."

"But don't you guys see?" Spencer reassured them all. "Ali is gone. She's not a part of our lives anymore. She might have treated us terribly, but she brought us together. And because of that we're stronger. We're not those people anymore, okay?" She glanced at Hanna, then Aria, then Emily. They all shared the same solemn countenances. "Okay?" she reiterated. "Ali can't hurt us anymore. Not when we have each other."

Nodding her head, Aria leaned her temple on Spencer's shoulder and Emily hugged them both, squishing into Aria's side. Hanna joined in on Spencer's empty side and they held each other, silently embracing what they had.

Spencer was right. They weren't lost anymore. Together, they were found, and they had their entire futures ahead of them just being who they were becoming.

…

The girls had decided on a random movie, _21 Jump Street_, and when the chemistry teacher hit on Greg, the police officer impersonating a high school student, Aria uncomfortably wriggled in her spot on the couch and pulled out her phone. The time said 6:43.

"I have to go," Aria blurted out, squeezing off the couch; she'd been trapped between Emily and Spencer, who both awkwardly laughed at the teacher flirting scene.

"What?" Spencer complained. "But we're having a sleepover!"

"I'm sorry, guys." Aria moped. "I forgot to tell you that Ezra asked me to meet at his apartment at seven."

All signs of distress on Spencer's face dissipated and were replaced by a suggestive eyebrow raise. "Oh," she purred slyly. "In that case, see you later... _Maybe._"

Aria tilted her head and glared at Spencer. "Because you said that, I _will _see you later." She grabbed her bag and lifted it onto her shoulder. "So see you _tonight_. Not tomorrow. Not at one in the morning. But tonight, before midnight."

"Whatever you say," Spencer trilled, and she, Hanna, and Emily waved at Aria as she shuffled out the door and started her car, rolling her eyes at Spencer's comment in her head.

Twenty minutes later she parked in front of the apartment complex and, aware that she was late, clomped up the flights of stairs to the third floor. After unlocking the door with her own key and stumbling inside, she allowed herself to breathe and her tense shoulders sagged. "Hey," she huffed while setting her bag on the kitchen table. "I'm sorry I'm late. The girls didn't want to let me go."

"It's fine," Ezra said, a boyish grin on his face. Aria squinted her eyes; she recognized this mood. He was beaming off his I-have-some-amazing-news-I-can't-wait-to-share aura. She crossed one foot over the other, entwined her arms at her chest, and shifted her weight onto one hip, leaning on the counter. "So," she drawled, smiling. "What's the surprise?"

Ezra stood up from the couch, where he had muted the movie he was watching—Aria recognized it as _Casablanca_, one of her all-time favorites—and met her where she was standing. There was a hint of anxiety in his sparkling eyes, and he stuck out his right hand, palm up, indicating her to give him her hand. Unsure, Aria reluctantly placed her left hand on top, and with his free hand Ezra slipped in a cool, rugged, metal object in her palm before closing her fingers. Raising one eyebrow, Aria looked up at him, a confused yet bright grin on her lips, and he eagerly told her to look at it.

Aria stretched out her fingers, and her lips parted, gasping at the sight. It was a gold key she had remembered seeing before, at a trip down to New York a few weekends ago. Instantly she remembered the light, pastel green walls, mahogany floors, large, open windows allowing in warm, beautiful light, and a balcony. "You…you got that apartment that looks over the park?" Aria stammered in disbelief. Ezra nodded his head, his lips pulled into his mouth so that he would stop smiling like an idiot, and she let out a strained laugh to ease her shock. "I can't believe it."

"You said it first," he said. "It was the perfect place to make a new home."

"B-but what about _your_ apartment?" she panted, breathless from the surprise. She looked around the dim place, not so willing to give up the memories made in here. "How else did you get that money? You must have sold it."

"I didn't have to," Ezra began to explain. "I was able to bargain with the realtor _and _avoid my family. It was a win-win situation. In fact, I'm leaving mostly everything here so that we don't have to cram in your mom's apartment or dad's house when we visit."

Bewildered, Aria just stared at him, adoration, happiness, and exhilaration passing across her wide, shimmering eyes. There was a mysterious glint in them, too.

"Oh God," Ezra exclaimed as Aria pounced on him, wrapping her legs around his waist and pushing him backwards. Thankfully she was small and he had the muscle mass to prevent a horrible fall, and he was able to steady them both despite the fact it was hard to do that when Aria was smothering his face.

After practically covering his entire face with kisses, Aria pulled away, breathless, and put one hand to her racing, ecstatic heart. "Oh my God, this is so exciting!" she squealed, laughing loudly as a couple tears dripped down her cheeks. She placed her hands on his cheeks and trailed her fingers along the skin, shaking her head in incredulity. "This is actually happening."

Ezra hadn't seen her this hyped in a long time, and to see her brought to tears of joy by his news made him feel that cliché, fluttery feeling he'd read so often in books.

Needless to say, Aria didn't return to the sleepover that night.


	2. Chapter 1

**Where We Are Supposed to Be**

**Chapter 1**

_April 2022_

After marching out of her work building early that afternoon, Aria squinted her eyes at the beaming sunlight lighting up the New York skyscrapers and slid the sunglasses from atop her head down the bridge of her nose, grinning pleasantly at the spring breeze. As she started walking through the busy crowd away from the place where she spent most of her time setting up and organizing a local New York City newspaper with her own photos and short stories, she rolled her eyes while her mother, Ella, chided her on the phone. "Mom, Daisy is fine. It was a small fever, okay? The doctor said it wasn't worth the midnight trip to the hospital."

"But is she eating? Because if she isn't, that could be a sign of—"

"Yes, Mom, she's eating." Aria sighed and clomped down the steps to the subway station, brushing her free hand on her skirt to smooth out the wrinkles. "Her temperature's back to normal, it's not even existent—"

"Aria," Ella interrupted, her tone of voice very serious. "Fevers are a huge deal with children as young as Daisy. If you don't treat it, it could become something worse—"

"We did treat it," Aria tried to explain for the hundredth time, but Ella just didn't want to listen. "This is the millionth time I told you. The doctor said to just buy the normal cold medicine, and Ezra was so freaked he bought ten packs and she barely needed one before she was back to normal."

There was a moment of silence on Ella's end of the phone and Aria boarded the subway, moving her purse closer to the front of her body; she'd learned a lot from the past ten years of living in New York City. She'd been begging Ezra to move out into a more suburban area of New York to raise their young daughter, but at the moment they didn't have the financial means to do so, but they were getting closer to moving on and away from the noisy, lively city.

Finally, Ella spoke. "Is she playing? Because—"

Before Ella could go into another rant, Aria spoke over her. "Nowadays she's playing more than she's sleeping and it's driving me crazy to have all those toys all over the place." Ella went on to blab about how annoying Aria was as a child, and fawned over how her granddaughter was just like her mother in that sense, and eventually there came a chime indicating another call that saved Aria from her mother's emotional throwback day. Aria checked who was calling. It was Spencer.

Praising Spencer in her head, Aria quickly told Ella that Ezra was trying to reach her and it might be about something important, like Daisy, so she rapidly hung up and answered Spencer's call. "I'm so glad you called!" Aria exclaimed, breathing a sigh of relief. The subway came to a halt at her stop and she filed out into the station, back up the stairs, and into the streets. "My mother wouldn't stop talking and lecturing me."

Spencer laughed, comforted by her best friend's voice; it had been a while since the last time they'd spoken on the phone. "Hey, it scared me too when you called me at one in the morning to announce you were taking Daisy to the hospital!"

"That's what the books said to do!" Aria protested as she entered the apartment complex across from the park and started the long ascent upstairs to the fourth floor.

"I know, I know, I read them, too." Spencer turned around and glanced at her sleeping eleven-month-old son, Keenan. "I'm just so happy to hear that she's better now, and in such a short time!"

Aria grinned and reached into her purse for her key to unlock her door. Once she found it, she shimmied it into the lock and said, "Remind me again why you're calling because I know it's not to fawn over your adorable goddaughter—you did that last week with that long email you sent me."

Spencer snorted thinking about the email she'd sent Aria—note: after Keenan had kept her up most of the night—with pictures attached of her and Daisy spending time together, godmother and goddaughter. Spencer loved her like her own kid, except Keenan was number one in her heart (but Daisy didn't have to know that). "I was calling because I have some news."

"What is it, Spence?" When Aria opened the door, the first thing she noticed was the smell of Tunisian cuisine, and then she saw Daisy on the hardwood floor with stuffed animals galore spread around her, the spoiled child she was. She looked up with the same eyes as her mother's, except they were tinted a beautiful blue-green hue, and she gave an excited squeal and reached out her hands. Aria dropped her purse and sunglasses on the table next to the door and bent down to scoop the eighteen-month-old into her arms, balancing her cell between her shoulder and ear. Once she adjusted Daisy in a comfortable position, she was able to slip her left hand away to hold her phone. "Hey!" she whispered while rubbing her nose against her daughter's, the anxiety from the day instantly melting as Daisy ecstatically wrapped her arms around her mother.

"Are you sitting down for this?" Spencer asked her right when Aria rounded into the kitchen, her eyes widening at the sight of Ezra cooking. Though he had improved a lot in the past ten years, she couldn't say he was a chef, but his efforts always came out better each time he tried. It was nice to not always do the cooking, but she had to admit, Ezra was a laundry connoisseur and she was, well, shrinking her expensive panties and staining the whites pink. So she stayed with the cooking in order to save their closet, and Ezra stuck to the laundry in order not to starve. But the dishes—they did that together, because all married couples bonded over filling a dish washer and washing then drying the ones that had to be hand-cleaned.

"Um, no?" Aria said, a bit concerned, a groomed eyebrow rising in response as well.

Ezra turned around at the sound of Aria's voice and her heels clacking on the floor and smiled at her, not saying anything because she was on the phone. She grinned back despite the exhausted look Ezra could see plastered behind her eyes, and she pointed at a bowl of washed strawberries he'd cut up for Daisy, but the fussy infant had denied them. He nodded his head, silently permitting her to eat them, and she plucked a piece out and popped it in her mouth. The juice was refreshing, and after she swallowed she kissed Daisy, who was fumbling with her mother's necklace, on the top of her head of dark curls.

"Toby and I are coming up to New York for a month!" Spencer exclaimed after a moment of anticipation, almost causing Aria to drop her phone.

"What?" Aria yelled, and Ezra, worried and taken by surprise, looked at her and away from his cooking.

"I know! Toby has a client from the city wanting his entire living room redone and he said the renovation could take a few weeks. Which means we'll be seeing each other every day for a whole _month_!"

Aria scoffed in disbelief, her jaw dropped open to the floor. Confused, Daisy blinked her large eyes at her mother, her tiny fingers still playing with the pendant. Ezra had the same look of bewilderment on his face, and Aria just waved him off, attempting to silently tell him everything was fine—well, _more_ than fine.

"We're coming next week on Monday!" Spencer squealed, feeling like a teenager again. "I can't wait to see you. It's been too long!"

"I can't wait to see you either! We're going shopping as soon as you get here. Oh, and I am taking Keenan to the park because I just have to spoil that little boy."

After chatting for a bit longer about their plans, Ezra getting more and more nervous as Aria kept bringing up costlier things they could do, Aria hung up the phone contently and snuggled into Daisy, the tiny girl rubbing her forehead against Aria's nose.

"Ezra, do we have any box tickets to anything?" Aria asked politely.

"What, no hello?" Ezra said while stirring the mass of chickpeas and tangy sauce and vegetables.

Aria placed Daisy on the ground and strode up to him, pecking him on the cheek, which was a bit rough from a day's growth of stubble. "Hi," she sighed, leaning onto his shoulder comfortably and closing her eyes. She was so tired yet so ecstatic, she wasn't sure how to react anymore. "Tickets?"

"I think there's a production of _Annie_ coming up, but they might not be box seats." Ezra set down the wooden spoon in the saucepan and wrapped his freed hands around her shoulders, rubbing circles on her back. The gesture was comforting and reminded Aria of when she was eight months pregnant and complaining of back pain, and Ezra would massage her lower back without one complaint. It was such a nice feeling even without the aches and strains.

"But your mom always sends you box seats," Aria mumbled into his shoulder, and Ezra watched as Daisy stood up and fell back down, entertaining herself with that.

"I think she's still pissed that we never let her see Daisy," Ezra honestly told her, and Aria stiffened and pulled away.

"What, and that's my fault?"

"No, no, of course not. I don't want Daisy exposed to that world either, but she's still her granddaughter. She deserves to see her once and a while."

Aria still held a firm gaze. "Then why can't she come visit? Why do we have to drag Daisy to the Upper East Side just so your mother can be photographed with her in the society pages?"

"Aria," Ezra said breathily, practically sighing her name. His hands ran up and down her arms until he finally intertwined her fingers with his. "She's my mom. I'll talk to her about this."

Aria nodded her head, already disliking how she'd made a big deal out of Dianne Fitzgerald. The woman had been getting on her nerves since the moment she'd met her; the only time she'd ever behaved kindly for a whole event, Aria believed, was at her and Ezra's wedding. As Ezra returned to the stove, Aria turned around and picked up Daisy again, nuzzling her nose into the baby's neck and shutting her eyes. After that small moment of bliss, Aria turned back to Ezra and said, "Box seats or not, I'm taking those tickets."

Ezra smiled boyishly, raising his hands, one holding the spoon, in surrender. "I'm fine with that. Some people don't have to see _Annie_ one hundred times," he joked, poking fun at how Aria adored the musical about the little orphan.

"In my defense, 'Tomorrow' was the first song I ever performed in front of an audience." She brushed aside Daisy's curls adoringly. "And Daisy's going to sing that one day, too."

"No," Ezra groaned while he already imagined the horror that was going to be having to listen to that song on repeat for weeks. "Can't you wait until she's old enough to decide that on her own?"

"Ezra, she will never gain the confidence to sing or do anything in front of people unless I help her early on, and that, therefore, requires my suggestions," Aria defended her case.

Ezra muttered inaudibly under his breath, "Unless she's a natural born entertainer."

"Now, before we get into a whole argument about our differing viewpoints of childrearing, I am going to give Daisy a bath before taking a long, hot, bubbly one of my own."

"The food will be ready in an hour," Ezra announced as Aria disappeared around the corner, the light stomp of her footsteps fading away. Shaking his head, Ezra bit his tongue to prevent himself from laughing out loud. One hour later Aria walked into the kitchen in nothing but a robe and her wet hair pulled into a bun, a couple of loose strands framing her face. While they sat at the tiny dinner table and made small talk, laughing between bites of spicy foreign food, Ezra couldn't help but bask in the comfort they'd created around each other for the past twelve years.

…

One week into May, Spencer and Aria barged into Aria's apartment, attempting miserably to squeeze through the door with all the shopping bags they had hanging from their arms. "Oh my gosh, that was so crazy!" Aria huffed, her stomach aching from laughter, while she dropped the bags onto the couch and kicked off her heels.

"I can't believe so many people were there on a Monday!" Spencer almost tripped over a stuffed rabbit as she settled her bags and boxes on the ground. She then dramatically wiped the nonexistent sweat from her forehead. "But that was so worth it."

"It was," Aria said breathlessly, her eyes still wide from the craziness that was shopping in New York.

Earlier that morning Aria had knocked on Spencer's hotel door and exclaimed, "Leave the kids with the boys, 'cause we're making up for lost time!" Toby, who didn't have to work that day because there were a couple of problems that needed to be sorted out with the owner and his decisions for the renovations, was planning on hanging out with Ezra while the girls watched the kids, but, of course, the women won the argument and left little Keenan and Daisy with their fathers. While on their way in a taxi cab to a shopping mall, Spencer and Aria shared the same concerned look, both wondering if it was a good idea to leave their kids with their husbands, but that look only lasted for a second before the best friends realized how much fun they were going to have that day.

Now Aria was calling up Ezra on the phone while Spencer was in the bathroom. When he answered, she happily chirped, "Hey! How's everyone?" into the phone.

"Great," Ezra responded. He and Toby sat on a park bench as their kids played in a sandbox in front of them. "All of these women keep approaching us thinking we're single but then we show off our kids and they get all the attention."

"I can't tell if you're complaining or not. Do you want to be ogled by younger women who will never be as gorgeous as your wife?"

Ezra scoffed. "Not really. That's why Toby and I immediately told them, 'Have you _seen_ our adorable kids?'"

At that moment Daisy smashed a pile of sand Keenan was making, and Toby shook his head, saying, "Now that's not fair."

"Wow, aren't you both such amazing husbands," Aria teased.

"We are, aren't we?" Ezra said, hitting his fist against Toby's as though they were having a high school "bromance."

Spencer entered the room and Aria held the phone away from her mouth, whispering, "Ezra says he and Toby keep getting hit on at the park."

Spencer waved her hand. "Please. As if those women are better than us anyway."

Aria laughed and shook her head before returning to the conversation. "So everything's okay then? Does Daisy look fine? No temperature, redness?"

"Believe me, I keep checking every fifteen minutes if her fever's coming back. Toby's ready to glue me to the bench. She's fine, healthy, and keeps ruining Keenan's sand creations."

"Well, she's our daughter, what did you expect? Kiss her hello for me," Aria said before hanging up and flopping back on the couch, sighing dramatically.

Ezra slipped his phone back into his pocket and continued to watch the playing babies. For the fourth time that day Daisy smacked her hand into Keenan's next sand pile, though the baby boy seemed unfazed by what the older child was doing.

He just kept scooping it up and making another one. "That's my trooper," Toby praised. "See, I could intervene and stop this nonsense, but Keenan doesn't need my help. He's just trudging forward no matter how many times she ruins it."

"I didn't realize this was turning into a baby war," Ezra joked, and the two went back to talking about embarrassing work stories. Toby told Ezra about the time Spencer visited him while he was working on a project, and the two of them thought the other workers would be on their lunch break for a bit longer. Needless to say, the situation got steamy, and they got caught. Ezra said he had a similar story but it involved a janitor's closet. Anytime Aria visited the high school from then on the lady in the admission's office would give her a disapproving look, and Aria would sulk to Ezra's classroom in shame.

"What's the matter?" Spencer asked her best friend as she sat on the opposing couch.

Aria struggled with her words, not sure why she felt the need to say what she was going to say. "Do you ever miss it? Not being a mom, I mean?"

Spencer was taken aback by the question. "Of course," she answered honestly. "All the time. But that doesn't mean I would change it. I love where my life is right now, and Keenan is such a gift. But I do miss my alone days, not having the responsibility of raising a kid with someone else. It's especially hard with both of us working. You understand that, too."

Aria stared at the ceiling, nodding her head. "I agree. Being out with you today without the kids to worry about, it reminded me of the older days. But it makes me feel guilty thinking like this. Daisy's a miracle, you know? Especially after…"

"I know," Spencer interrupted her. "You don't need to say it." She bit her lip, then added, "I understand, Aria. You don't have to feel guilty about longing for those older days."

"I still do." She sighed, playing with her pastel-painted nails. "Because she's so special and I don't want to go back in time to when I didn't have her."

"Oh, Aria," Spencer uttered, wrapping her arms around her tiny friend's shoulders. "I promise you it's okay."

"Thanks, Spence." Aria sniffled into the embrace. "I've missed you so much."

"I've missed you, too."


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N: I have up to chapter 6 of this written. I've been updating this every two weeks in order to preserve the chapters I've written and have regular updates. I thought I'd have more time as the school year went on, but the next couple of weeks are going to be crazy, so I'm crossing my fingers that winter break I will be bored studying physics and write like crazy. Hopefully I won't run out of chapters of this story and then you guys will have to wait for who knows how long.**

**Next story I'll update is _In the Garden of Eden. _I have only 500 words of the next chapter written but it's a start. Thank you for your patience.**

* * *

><p><strong>Where We Are Supposed to Be<strong>

**Chapter 2**

That Friday, Aria sat at the kitchen table drinking a huge mug of coffee before getting ready to go to work, thoughtfully staring straight ahead at the cabinets. She could hear the babysitter, a sweet nineteen-year-old named Elle who was taking a year off college and working in the evenings, cooing at Daisy and listing off what she had to do for the day in a baby voice. In return Daisy was speaking gibberish, still not fully able to speak full sentences. "And after we eat lunch, we're going to— Oh, would you like your stuffed pig? Aww, here you go," Elle said, and Ezra, standing at the coffee maker, snorted.

"Do we really talk like that?" he asked Aria as he sat down. It was seven in the morning and he really needed his caffeine to get through another Friday.

"Mm, sometimes," Aria croaked, her voice still low from having woken up ten minutes ago. Usually she slept in because she didn't have to be at work until nine, but she couldn't sleep well. "It just makes everyone happier if we talk like that. I guess it's cute or something."

"Hmm. I try to avoid it. But it does create great embarrassing stories," Ezra replied, turning his attention to the newspaper.

Aria stared at him, at the light gray circles forming under his eyes. Neither acknowledged how exhausted they were. When Daisy was born, Ezra had taken two weeks off while Aria had taken six months; despite Daisy keeping them up at night, they were able to sleep whenever the baby was asleep. Now it was get up, make sure there's no conflict with the babysitter, go to work, come home, pay the babysitter, play with and care for Daisy, eat dinner, try to get Daisy to go to bed (it's always a fuss), relax for an hour at the most if Daisy would let them, and go to sleep because they were so worn out.

"Hey." Aria broke the silence, an idea dawning on her. "We don't have any plans this weekend. Want to drive up to the cabin? We can spend the weekend there, just you and me. Spencer and Toby can watch Daisy."

Ezra set his coffee mug down reluctantly, flipping the page of the newspaper as he did so. "I don't know…" He trailed off.

"You can still grade papers and do whatever you need to do. The difference is we don't have Daisy to fuss over," Aria persuaded him. "It's been a while since we've spent some real time together. We always crash once the day is over."

Ezra stared into her round eyes, glinting with hope. "All right." He caved in. "We can drive up there tomorrow, early morning."

It took all of Aria's energy to suppress jumping up in excitement. Calmly, or as calm as she could be, she took a sip of her coffee and grinned from ear-to-ear. "This should be fun," she said nonchalantly, as though a weekend-long vacation away in the desolate woods didn't fill her with the excitement of a child.

"If we don't sleep the whole day away," Ezra pointed out, drawing attention to his worn face. "Daisy just doesn't like sleeping anymore, does she?"

"I don't know if she ever did. It always seems like she's awake." Aria and Ezra laughed and Ezra glanced at the clock. He had to leave, but he didn't want to, not really. It felt good—more than good—just sitting here talking with his wife. But that's what the weekend was for, he supposed.

"Well, high schoolers aren't going to teach themselves Faulkner and Hemingway," he said followed by a sigh. Aria tried not to frown as he kissed her cheek and fumbled for his satchel, bidding Daisy farewell in—surprise, surprise—a baby voice.

"Try to have fun and loosen up, otherwise those kids are going to hate you," Aria yelled at him while he opened the door.

He winked at her. "I can try, but nothing is going to be as fun as our getaway this weekend," he said, causing Aria to blush involuntarily. "See you at four!"

After he closed the door, Elle looked at Aria and raised her blonde eyebrows. Clearing her throat, Aria awkwardly brought the cup to her lips. "Do not take that statement the wrong way, Elle. Fun is many things."

Elle snickered and replied, "Whatever you say, Mrs. Fitz." She then turned her attention back to Daisy. Blocking the child's ears, she exclaimed, "You didn't hear that Daisy, did you?" But Daisy just responded with a blank look and went back to playing with her stuffed pig. "Good thing you don't understand what an 'innuendo' is."

Aria took that as her opportunity to get up and casually lock herself in the bedroom. She glanced at the pictures on the nightstand—wedding photos, pictures of baby Daisy, even the one she'd had on her own nightstand as a teenager—and was reminded of the upcoming weekend. She had to bite down on her lip to prevent a goofy smile from spreading across her beaming face. Whether they slept all day, had a movie marathon, or whatever, Aria was looking forward to getting away.

…

"Remember, her molars are coming in, so she'll try to chew _anything_."

It was seven AM on a lovely Saturday morning. The sky was clear except for a few fluffy, cotton-candy-like clouds drifting in the cool spring breeze. If they lived in a less industrial place, Aria could imagine the smell of fresh-mown grass and blooming flowers like in Rosewood at this time. The temperature wasn't too hot and it wasn't too cold, making it just right.

As Aria shifted Daisy in her arms, rubbing the knuckle of her index finger against the infant's nose, she continued to blab at Spencer and Toby in front of their hotel room. "Her fever from—what was it, a couple weeks ago?—is completely gone, but just in case I added a couple boxes of medicine. Oh! And she can't sleep without her stuffed pig. Like mother like daughter, right?" She giggled and nuzzled Daisy's nearly black curls before handing her to Spencer. The tiny girl's eyes, which were, at the moment, a dark sea blue with specks of hazel green, started to water, and Aria immediately felt distressed.

"No, no, no! Don't cry!" Aria cooed and reclaimed the baby, hugging her tightly. "It's only for a night. We'll be back tomorrow afternoon!"

Spencer and Ezra shared a look that said, _If she doesn't let go of her now, we're going to be standing here forever. _Clearing his throat, Ezra put a hand on Aria's shoulder and tried to coax her out of giving up Daisy. "Aria, if we don't leave now we're not going to have a lot of time doing whatever. Daisy spends all week not seeing us between the hours of eight and four, she can handle a bit more than a day. And it's not like we're never going to see her again."

But Aria kept a firm hold on Daisy. She didn't say why she was so clingy—a gnawing part of Spencer's brain believed it might have to do with the conversation they had on Monday, of Aria feeling guilty for wanting to go back in time—and she didn't seem to hear Ezra. Her actions were eerily similar to when she had been returning to work after six months of maternity leave; Ella had been visiting to help Aria with the transition and had promised to watch over little six-month-old Daisy with hawk eyes. But Aria had still been determined, practically ready to lock herself in a room with her child.

"Okay, you know what, give me," Spencer ordered Aria, and Daisy giggled happily while Spencer held her in her arms, giving a toothy smile. Spencer returned the grin before waving one arm and shooing the parents away. "Now go! Have fun! We'll be fine here."

Ezra began to pull Aria away, but Aria kept her eyes trained on Daisy forlornly, Spencer telling Daisy—in a baby voice, of course—to bid goodbye, and Daisy did so while waving her hand. "Bye-bye Mama, Dada," she was able to say choppily in her slowly developing form of speech, and Spencer praised her. It was Aria's turn to tear up a little bit, but she was able to stride to the elevator without running back. As she and Ezra entered the moving box, Aria pouted depressingly.

Ezra patted her shoulder. "I'm proud of you," he said while Aria watched the sign indicating what floor they were on switch from five to four. "And I completely understand how hard it is to leave that adorable face. It takes a _lot _of self-control. Or did you forget that we share the same child?"

The elevator dinged and Aria weakly laughed as they exited, crossing her arms at her chest. "I must have because your self-control is just that good."

They walked hand-in-hand to the subway where they were going to get off in a less busy part of New York, and where the car they'd rented was waiting so they could drive into the rising sun. "I guess it was easier for me to go back to work because I only spent two straight weeks with her, and it still hadn't hit me yet that I was a parent. But I still hate leaving her for long periods of time. Like I could be missing something, you know?"

The two kept talking about their daughter and how much they'd changed in the past year and a half since she'd been born the entire subway ride away from the city, and afterwards they climbed into the waiting car and conversed about their lives for the ten and a half years without Daisy.

They reached the cabin at noon and Aria jumped out of the car, the small bag she had brought to hold her toiletries clunking against her side. Rapidly she typed in the cabin security code—B26—and barged into the woodsy place, immediately collapsing on the bed.

"Ugh, it's been so long!" she shouted as Ezra followed behind at his own pace, shutting the door behind him and suppressing a laugh at Aria's sprawled-out body on the bed. She only basked in its familiarity for a second, though, before getting up and examining each shelf, running her finger over the dusty surface. She then twirled around and fell onto the couch, throwing her head back against the cushion. "I feel like I'm eighteen again! Remember when I had that party with the girls before the end of summer?"

"Barely," Ezra grunted as he set his bag down and sat next to her. "A lot has happened between then and now."

Aria tilted her head to look at him and smirked. "What should we do first?" she inquired, changing the subject.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I was hoping we could make lunch with the food we picked up from the grocery store on the way here."

Aria scooted closer to him and leaned her head on his shoulder, batting her eyelashes. Her fingers walked up his chest. "And what about afterwards?"

Ezra continued to tease her and took her roaming hand in his, entwining their fingers. "I have to grade some papers."

Pouting, Aria stuck out her bottom lip and sat away from him, prying her hand away. The two sat there in silence for a couple seconds until Aria, in mock irritation, said, "I guess that doesn't mean you want to go down to the lake later."

In remembrance of the lake, Ezra raised an eyebrow in amusement. "Well, since you brought it up…" Aria smiled suggestively in response. It was almost like she was a teenager again.

Leaning towards him, she whispered in his ear, "Ten tonight. We're doing it." Then she promptly stood up and headed towards the kitchen as though she hadn't said anything, and that's when Ezra himself felt young again, too.

Because neither of them could be this playful with a young daughter at home.

…

A quarter past ten, Aria slammed the door open and rushed in, teeth chattering. "That was freezing!" she exclaimed as Ezra followed behind her, sighing in relief when he saw her cranking up the heat at the thermostat.

"At least we learned something today," he said as he draped a warm, dry blanket over her wet, dripping shoulders before grabbing another one for himself. "It's still too early in the season to swim in the lake."

Aria shivered in her damp clothes. "I should have kept my clothes on before jumping in," she whined, then burst out laughing. "I guess we're not as young as we think we are."

"To think that we were so intoxicated with each other ten years ago we were able to jump in that lake in March and warm up the whole thing," Ezra added, rubbing his soaking hair with a towel.

"Yeah," Aria said, giggling softly at the memory. But the reminder of her youth only made her feel a bit depressed, so she moved on. "I'm going to change out of these clothes."

"Can you hand me a t-shirt, too? I'll be bringing out the alcohol."

"Sure thing," Aria called back as they parted ways, Ezra to the kitchen and Aria to the bedroom. She opened the dresser drawer and smiled at the clothes she hadn't seen in what felt like forever. She pulled out a folded t-shirt and a Hollis sweatshirt. Stripping down, she dried herself with the blanket, flung the t-shirt _and _sweatshirt over her head, then slid on a fresh pair of underwear that wasn't wet and didn't cling annoyingly to her skin. The shirt and sweatshirt were so big, they came down to above her knees. Grinning, she grabbed an extra t-shirt and padded into the kitchen.

"Here you go," she chirped while holding out the shirt. When Ezra turned around, a glass of wine and a cup of scotch in his hands, he almost dropped them.

"Whoa," he said, drawing out the word. "_That _brings back memories."

The corners of Aria's lips turned up and she hugged herself, enjoying the scent emanating from the fabrics. "I can't believe I left this here. I used to wear it all the time," she said, indicating the sweatshirt.

They switched the shirt and the glass of wine with each other, and Aria took a dainty sip. Ezra replaced his clingy, wet shirt with the new one and was glad he was wearing boxers under his shorts. Once he had kicked away the soggy clothes into the pile with Aria's, he gulped down the scotch, which burned down his throat.

"Spencer texted me," Aria spoke up after their brief moment of quietness. "Apparently Daisy was worn out, went right to sleep at the recommended time." She shook her head, not able to believe it. Ezra did the same.

"If anyone was going to perform a miracle, it would be Spencer," he commented, taking another swig of the brownish alcohol.

Aria gazed into the red liquid in her glass and swished it around thoughtfully. The thought of Daisy, and how easily she was able to forget about her daughter in the past day, reminded Aria of her and Spencer's conversation. _She's a miracle_, Aria told herself. _A gift after what happened._

Ezra noticed Aria's change of behavior and instantly felt that something was wrong. "You okay?" he asked softly, politely.

Snapped out of it, Aria blinked multiple times and nodded her head, though it was unconvincing. "Yeah, I think— I think I'm just tired," she mumbled, stumbling over her words. She set down her unfinished glass, but she had done it with more force than she'd meant to, causing the red liquid to slosh out a bit. Embarrassed, her face flushed red. "Um… I'm going to get ready for bed."

Ezra watched as she disappeared around the corner, concerned. He wasn't a mind-reader. Maybe, he theorized, Aria was bothered by the cabin's reminder of her age. Twenty-eight was still young in Ezra's opinion, but for him, the gray hairs were looming in the near future, especially if Daisy got fussier with age. Bothered by that sour thought, he downed the rest of his scotch and turned off all the lights, headed into the bedroom, and turned on the TV.

Meanwhile Aria stared at her reflection after having washed her face. Reaching up, she lightly skimmed her fingers across the puffy, dark circles under her eyes. Without the concealer they were embarrassingly visible and aged her by at least five years. _Spencer must have them too_, she told herself comfortingly. And her mom must have had it worse, having had Aria right after getting out of college at twenty-three.

Her phone vibrated in her hoodie pocket and she took it out, opening a new text message from Spencer. Instantly her heart warmed at a picture of Daisy sleeping, clutching her stuffed pig, while curled up next to Keenan, who was wrapped up in his blanket. _They fell asleep while playing with each other,_ the text read. _We produced angels._ Then another text came in. _Toby says hi, I say you better be using protection. _

Scoffing, Aria was about to type in a reply when another message came in. _Seriously. Daisy doesn't need siblings. That's what Keenan is for. _Again Aria was able to type in "How adorable!" when Spencer sent in one last text. _Okay. I apologize for "the talk." Now this is just awkward._

Aria replied, _How adorable! Give Daisy kisses from me and Ezra and say hi to Toby from us. No, I will not respond to anything else you said._

When she came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, she saw Ezra flipping through channels, his eyebrows furrowed as though the task of hitting buttons on the remote was a challenge. Aria slid under the covers next to him and sighed, snuggling into him. "Anything good on?" she asked.

When he shook his head, still determined as ever to find a decent channel, she snuck out her phone and showed him the picture, commenting, "I am totally printing this out and hanging it up in my office. And posting it on Facebook, of course." At that moment a notification came through her phone. "Never mind. Spencer already did that." Under the picture Spencer had put the caption "Little angels. Such gifts to us." Already Hanna, Emily, and Ella (what the heck was she doing up so late?) had liked the picture, even though it had just been posted a minute ago.

"Send that picture to me. I'll add it to the slideshow," Ezra said vaguely.

As Aria was scrolling past a picture of Hanna, who Aria could now tell was at least five months pregnant, and Caleb at the beach in Montecito, she scrunched up her face in confusion at Ezra's favor. "Slideshow?"

Ezra looked at her. There was no sign of a joke in his eyes. "Yes, slideshow. I'm making this PowerPoint for my students at the end of the year, and I'm just going to fawn over Daisy and they're going to have to suffer through it." He added, "Except they _won't _suffer because they'll be so warmed by her cuteness. Do you want to be in it?"

Aria rolled her eyes and slapped his arm, leaning against it again. "Heck no. Not after the janitor's closet incident. None of them need to be reminded of that by seeing my face."

After a few more minutes of channel surfing and Ezra admitting that there wasn't really a PowerPoint, the two called it a night and shut off the lights. Encased in the darkness, Aria trailed her finger across her pillow, not ready to go to sleep. Ezra's arm was slung around her waist and Aria was unsure if he was asleep. Through the dark her eyes were able to make out a picture frame on the dresser. She had taken that picture ten years ago, when they had first came out to this place.

Rolling over, she burrowed her face into his chest, aching to be comforted. She really hated change, she realized. It really hurt that she felt like eighteen again but she wasn't. It also felt strange that at that point of her life, there was a cyberbully stalker that went by A which was her biggest problem. Nowadays she found the torments of A slipping through her memory, though there were aspects of A—the near-death experiences, Shana's accidental death, the betrayals, the torture in general—that would always stay with Aria. But now she was a wife, a mother, a godmother, and a writer and photographer by career. Where had the past ten years gone?

But then Ezra's eyes fluttered opened and he dug his nose into her mass of dark hair. They were so close, Aria could feel his heart thumping rhythmically and hear the sound of his breathing. Again, Aria was saddened. They rarely slept like this anymore, so close that their hearts practically synced up, though they hadn't fallen out of love, just out of lust, maybe. She shut her eyes even tighter, her nose wrinkling up, too.

The longer they stayed in that silence, the more Aria was consumed by her insecurities and worries. But Aria was able to breathe again when Ezra audibly sighed and pulled her closer, murmuring "I love you" into her hair.

Smiling slightly against his shirt, Aria wrapped her arm around his waist and closed her eyes comfortably. "I love you, too," she whispered, not the least bit surprised that three little words had impacted her mood so greatly. In the past twelve years Aria had known Ezra Fitz, they had survived a forbidden (not to mention illegal) relationship, her parents' wrath, moved in together, gotten through Aria's slightly rocky college years, been awarded stable jobs, gotten engaged, gotten married, and had a beautiful daughter. Despite being so young when they met, they knew they were soulmates and that the vows they'd made eight years after they'd met were for forever.

But it wasn't a smooth road to get here.


	4. Chapter 3

**sleepintheharding: **I still can't believe you're reading this story. I'm so pleased you like it. :)

**Rosewood girl 317: **I can confirm she is not clinically depressed now, but I'm not denying anything in the past...

**tragicallyconfused: **You flatter me. I adore every reader for supporting me for the two years I've been writing for this fandom.

* * *

><p><strong>Where We Are Supposed to Be<strong>

**Chapter 3**

_May 2022_

The digital clock blared the time 2:32 AM in red block numbers, the light reflecting off Aria's wide-awake hazel eyes. She'd been able to slyly sneak her head out of the embrace to check the time, sighing as she returned to her previous position nuzzled against Ezra's chest. Unbelievably, she was still awake, and she had no idea why.

But deep down she knew. She just didn't want to admit that aging was taking such a toll on her, especially since it just crept up on her and pounced.

With a small struggle she was able to gaze up at Ezra's sleeping face, and she wondered why he was able to go with the flow so much easier than she was. He hadn't been like this in his late twenties. Now he was in his early thirties and he still hadn't had as much longing for the older days like Aria was having. Her eyelid twitched as she tried not to feel any form or shape of envy.

Fluttering her eyes shut, Aria was brought back to her broken seventeen-year-old self. Of her screaming at him on the ski lift after she had found out the truth. Of her tearing through his apartment after having read the secrets she'd trusted him with, the words "Aria doesn't suspect a thing" scribbled in his notes. How what she had believed was fate was just an ambitious writer wanting to use her for information. That's what hurt the most: Finding out that what she had thought was destiny was just one fat lie.

But bullets left scars, and the whole truth, not only parts of it, came through. Maybe if she had let him speak instead of yelling at him to shut up she would have found out that whole truth a lot sooner. She would have known that his so-called crime book had been scrapped a few weeks into their secret relationship. That he had never even touched it again until he had started to suspect that A was back despite Mona being locked up, though the guilt had caused him to barely work on it. But after they had broken up over the fact that Aria didn't want to play stepmother at seventeen, he was able to go through his research again and begin to dig up more, and he found out A really _was_ back—and Alison was alive. After that it hadn't even been about documenting Alison's story anymore; everything after that had been purely to find out who A was. And he had become obsessed, going as far as reaching out to Mona, Shana, and Cece for information and setting up that very organized lair. And then Aria had approached him, and the guilt came back because Aria didn't know—about him knowing Alison, about the murder-mystery-book-turned-A research, about him knowing more about the life she was hiding. She didn't know about his objective notes on her and her friends, or the folders of pictures he had collected from Mona and Alison. She didn't know he had been in Ravenswood, trying to find Ali so he could help her come home; he was a safer bet than the girls because he wasn't on A's radar or hit list. He was so good at covering up the truth, not even _A_ knew about what he was doing until the truth had exploded, thanks to Spencer.

Was there ever redemption? Aria wasn't sure. Though both of Ezra's A predictions had turned out incorrect, he'd revealed Shana and her real intentions; that had saved at least Ali's life, maybe all of theirs. And his book never made it on the shelves because it was never published. He'd really gone out of his way to end the prolonged mystery, but the bullet only created neutral ground. Forgiveness came from helping Aria with her guilt after becoming a pretty little accidental killer. He had shared with the girls everything he'd known. Finally, they'd been able to put that part of their lives to rest.

And how could she have _not _forgiven him after that?

…

_August 2012_

Unlocking the door with a shaky hand, eighteen-year-old Aria jumped up and down in anticipation as she pushed the door of their new apartment open and clapped her hands excitedly. "I can't believe this place is really ours!" she squealed, gazing lovingly at the beautiful place. Ezra followed behind her, two suitcases in his hands, and laughed lightly at her childlike reaction.

Sighing contently, Aria strode across the bare wooden floor and flung the balcony doors open and stepped out. The view was that of the park, another decent apartment complex across the street, and the road below. There were plenty of trees and greenery growing in the park, and the complexes were newly built and painted, so it felt like, to Aria, at least, that they were living in a much better part of New York City than they actually were. With a scoff, Aria turned around, her hands clasped around the railing, and mused aloud in a bit of a joking manner, "I wonder if your mom has this good of a view in her penthouse."

As Ezra set the suitcases down in the furniture-less place, he replied, "But why does she need a nice view when she can just grow her own greenhouse on her four-times-as-large balcony?"

Aria stepped back into the apartment—or should she call it a condo, since they essentially owned it?—and left the doors open to let in the fresh, end-of-summer air. Her arms were crossed at her chest and she approached Ezra. "Does she know you're living in New York now?"

"No," Ezra said while placing the water bottles they'd bought before running for the train in the refrigerator. He exhaled deeply. "But she'll find out soon enough." Then, sneakily, he pulled out a bottle of wine he'd stored in the cupboard a couple weeks ago while meeting with his new boss. Aria smirked slyly as he also brought out two glasses. "Besides, even if she did know right now, it's not like she'd come visit this part of the city. Unless she wanted to give me an earful in person over my poor life decisions." He poured one glass then filled the next one up at half the amount. "Don't tell your dad I'm giving you some of this."

Propping her elbows up on the counter, Aria accepted the alcoholic offer, took a small sip, then said thoughtfully, "You know, when we were living in Iceland for that one year, my mom would let me drink tiny portions of the beer there every once and a while. I was fifteen and the legal age was eighteen, but in Europe the people were just so much more laidback than here."

"Really?" Ezra seemed skeptical. "Because when I was in Prague—"

"Okay, first of all, Prague is a _huge_ tourist attraction, like London and Paris. Of course you're going to feel rushed and stressed all the time surrounded by people on tours. But come on, you didn't feel that vibe at all?"

"Well, the closest I came to that feeling was in the outskirts of Reykjavik, but you already know about that."

Teasingly Aria glared at him and downed the rest of the wine. Setting the glass down, she leaned across the counter and said, "One day, I'm taking you to Europe, and we are going to visit all of these nice towns outside of the cities where we're going to lounge around all day, taste test their wines and beers, and watch their black-and-white movies. Deal?"

Ezra thought about escaping their lives for a while and doing nothing but moving from one place to the other without responsibilities, and smiled. He clinked his glass against her empty one. "Deal." With that, he finished it off, and set the glasses in the sink as Aria strutted to the bedroom.

When he followed her into the room, he saw her staring at the wall in deep thought. "It's too white," she commented as she waved her hands at the pure white walls. "The sea green in the living room gives it a more welcoming touch. This is just too bland and boring." She then glanced at the only two things they'd bothered to fill the apartment with at the moment, a mattress and a dresser. A tiny grin came across her face and her eyes glimmered as she looked at him. "We can repaint it."

"Aria, we just got here—," he tried to say, but Aria intruded.

"I know, but it's only one, Ezra. What are we going to do the rest of the day? My dad is coming tomorrow with the furniture and by then we'd have to move a whole bedframe and other stuff away from the walls. Now is the perfect time!"

Sighing in defeat, Ezra nodded his head. "I see your point. Let me just—"

"Great!" Aria chirped, flinging her arms around him in a quick hug. There was no way to get past Aria Montgomery when she wanted something. "Where's the closest paint store?"

Two hours later Aria barged into the apartment with two buckets of blue paint, struggling to not drop them. She let out the air in her lungs she'd been holding in while dropping them on the living room floor and wiping her forehead. Ezra came straggling behind with another paint can and a plastic bag full of brushes and trays, also plopping them down next to the other cans.

A triumphant little smirk on her face, Aria held out her hand. "I did it. Twenty bucks," she said, referring to the bet they'd made once they'd reached the apartment. Ezra had offered to carry two paint cans, but Aria had gotten in the way and had said that she could carry them. Despite protests from Ezra that she was too tiny, Aria had betted him twenty dollars that she could carry them without dropping them once.

Defeated, Ezra pulled out a twenty dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to Aria, who waved it in the air victoriously before heading to the bathroom to change into something she wouldn't mind getting dirty.

Thirty minutes later Aria was sitting on her bare knees on the plastic-sheet-covered ground in an old t-shirt and overalls, her two loose braids falling over her shoulders as she soaked the roller in turquoise paint. A sigh of relief escaped her lips as she brushed over the insipid whiteness that would have driven her crazy if they hadn't painted over it. "God, I miss painting," she confessed. She moved her hand up and down, creating smooth strokes.

Ezra, who was in beaten-up khakis and a t-shirt with small holes in it, had just started painting the opposite wall. "Oh yeah?" he chatted, interested. "I thought you got back into it over the summer."

Aria shook her head and dipped her brush back into the tin, rolling it back and forth to collect the sticky, gooey paint. "No, I did a lot of writing. Plus, the girls and I tried to do as much as possible, seeing as how we weren't going to see each other every day like we have for so long."

Ezra smiled from his side of the room. "When will _I _be allowed to read this infamous writing you always talk about?"

"One day," she teased, then quietly added, "Maybe."

"Well, if you're writing _Dawson's Creek _fanfiction, I don't think I want to read it." Ezra continued to poke fun at her.

"In my defense, Joey and Dawson _don't _end up together. How am I supposed to live with that?"

"Wait, that was how the show ended?" Aria nodded her head vigorously. "Oh. I thought that was just the end of the season."

"And you weren't helpful either! You didn't even hand me any tissues when I was balling my eyes out." Aria shook her head back and forth sadly and mumbled while slowly rolling the brush in the paint, "Stupid Netflix."

"Well, how can I make it up to you?"

Aria slapped the brush onto the wall, the paint splattering in all directions, including a couple of drops on her face. "Hmm…" She turned around as best as she could and saw the mattress was too close to the paint can. "You can move the mattress _away _from the paint before it gets ruined."

Like an obsequious servant, Ezra dragged the mattress to the very middle of the room. "Thank you," Aria said impassively, not even acknowledging Ezra and instead just painting the wall. They were quick and the room was small; most if it had already been covered in the turquoise. However, Ezra didn't like Aria's indifference towards his deed.

Quietly and deviously he set down his roller and picked up a square paintbrush, dipping just a tiny bit of it in the paint can. Padding silently over to her, he reached over her shoulder and got the bristles right on her nose. "You missed a spot," he laughed like a pre-teen boy while wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her back into his chest. She struggled, her nose wrinkled and eyes closed, and made the unfortunate mistake of smiling—Ezra got her right in the mouth. "Ugh," she sputtered as she wiped the corner of her mouth and a couple of her front teeth. "Ezra, stop!"

But he didn't, so Aria fought back and purposefully collapsed on the ground, causing Ezra to drop the paintbrush in order to catch the fall. They both fumbled for it, Ezra holding Aria back by the waist, but Aria was the victor and grasped it. Immediately she attacked Ezra's face and neck, streaking his nose, cheeks, forehead, and Adam's apple.

"Okay, okay, I give up!" he stammered, and wrestled Aria onto her back; she giggled as he did so. He was able to pry the brush from her hand and throw it to the side; it landed a few feet away. However, Aria looked behind her and saw the roller. When Ezra threw the paintbrush aside, she brought the roller up and flicked it, spraying paint everywhere. She shrieked then giggled madly as they were covered.

"Oh, is this a game now?" he said and tugged at the roller. While he was trying to get ahold of that, Aria used it to her advantage and brought up her knee, rolling them over. "Ha!" Regrettably for Ezra, she had him pinned down _and _still had possession of the roller.

But Ezra had strength, too, and flipped them over _again_, Aria losing her grip on the roller. In her effort to get it back, she'd grabbed the wet part, smearing her hands with paint. "It's game over, Aria," Ezra told her certainly.

Instead of responding, she brought up her hand and smeared the viscous paint on his cheek, running her fingers over his lips, too. "I see how it is. Well, you missed a spot again," he joked along as Aria, weakened by her laughter, wasn't aware that Ezra had brought his newly painted lips to hers, spreading the turquoise color on her own lips. When he pulled away, Aria had her nose crinkled. "That's worse than sharing saliva," she sputtered, though none of the paint had gotten in her mouth.

Ezra chortled and let her go. She scooted into a sitting position and glanced at the mattress they'd been fighting right next to.

Despite their previous efforts, the mattress was splotched with turquoise paint.

"Oh well," Aria commented. "It'll be covered by a comforter anyway."

As Ezra went to the bathroom to run a towel under water, Aria continued to paint the wall. Luckily they were almost done with it before the battle ensued.

When Ezra came back, he had washed off his own face, which was clear of all traces of blue. But Aria was too busy finishing up the walls to wipe down her colored cheeks, lips, and nose, so Ezra sat down on the mattress and waited for her (because she wouldn't let him touch her work), the damp cloth causing the tips of his fingers to wrinkle.

After the final stroke, Aria set the roller down and clapped her hands happily. Ezra joined in with the applause, saying, "I'm so glad this adventure in painting is over," and Aria plopped down next to him, taking the cool towel and placing it over her painted face.

"Ah, this feels nice," Aria said, her voice mumbled by the towel. She began to rub at the paint splotches, and after a few minutes she revealed her pink-tinted skin.

"You missed a spot," Ezra pointed out. "For real this time."

"Oh." Aria instinctively reached up to feel her face, but Ezra stopped her.

"Here, let me get it." Aria handed him the towel and he gently brushed the towel under her makeup-less hazel eye, the turquoise spot gone. "There."

"Thanks." She blushed like a middle schooler with a secret crush—even though she was a young adult living with her soulmate—and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, deciding to change the subject. "So, are you willing to try New York vegan takeout?"

Ezra seemed taken-aback. "After today's adventures?" he jested. "I don't know…"

She slapped his arm playfully and got up, offering him her hand. "Come on," she said, and he groaned in mock misery as she helped him up. "Let's go get dinner."

…

The next morning Aria woke up on the mattress in the middle of the bedroom to an affable, calming turquoise wall. A couple of candles that had been lit last night were partly liquefied and extinguished, and empty takeout boxes were tilted over next to them. There was a second blanket Aria couldn't remember snuggling in last night tangled between her legs, and she realized she must have fallen asleep and Ezra had covered her with an extra one.

Sleepily, she nuzzled into the blankets and shut her eyes. However, they were disrupted by a knock at the door.

Aria's eyes shot open and she remembered her dad was coming by today with the furniture. Shooting out of bed, she shook Ezra awake, who mumbled gibberish in confusion, and she bolted towards the door and opened it.

"Dad!" Aria greeted him and pulled him into a hug. She was grateful that she'd worn shorts and one of her own t-shirts to bed instead of just one of Ezra's shirts, though it was always entertaining to see Byron's face turn red from discomfort.

As Byron entered, another figure came bounding around the corner and crashed into Aria, encasing her in his arms. "Hey, big sister!" Mike said, rubbing the top of her head with his fist. When he let her go, Aria was still flailing her arms around in protest, murmuring, "Nice to see you too, Mike."

"Nice place you have here," Byron complimented as he looked around the light-filled living room. At that moment, Ezra came out of the bedroom yawning, with his hair messed up and early morning shadow darkening his cheeks and chin.

He was jolted awake, though, by the sight of Byron. "Byron," Ezra stammered. "Is it really noon already?"

Aria bit her bottom lip and quickly explained to her father, "We don't have a clock yet in the bedroom."

Byron sighed and looked between his daughter and her disheveled boyfriend, that red hue of discomfort spreading across his face. Aria began to smile but pulled her lips into her mouth to cease it. "Get dressed, then," he ordered. "Mike and I will bring up the first load."

As soon as they were in the bedroom, Ezra whipped off his shirt and Aria shut the door, whispering furiously, "Why did we sleep in so late?" She yanked her shirt off and threw a bra on, turning around so that Ezra would hook it.

"Well, for one, we were up late," he whispered back while fastening Aria's bra together; they were trying to go as quickly as possible, Aria kicking off her shorts at the same time and pouncing next to her suitcase as soon as Ezra's fingers had slipped the hooks in.

"Yeah, eating takeout and talking, it wasn't that exhausting," she huffed and pulled a random shirt over her head and also grabbed her jean shorts and shrugged those on. "Whatever. My dad would think the worst no matter what."

By the time they'd stepped out, Byron and Mike were entering with a couch, and Aria immediately went to help out. Ezra said he'd meet them downstairs for the next round.

When they had finally moved all of the furniture into the apartment, Aria started to point out where she wanted everything to go, and the men followed her every command. More than a few times she took over by herself and scooted around the furniture because they just weren't getting it right. In the living room there was a couch, bookshelf, flat screen TV, side table, and plush chair; the kitchen only had a table and two chairs; the bedroom had a dresser, desk, nightstand, and currently taken apart bed frame and mattress. After getting everything in place, they moved the boxes full of objects such as kitchen utensils, books, toiletries, et cetera and Aria said she and Ezra could do that later.

Now they were all standing in the bedroom as Byron was putting the bedframe together by himself. Skeptical, Aria watched as he struggled with a bolt. "Are you sure you want to do this on your own?"

"Yes, I'm fine," Byron mumbled determinedly. He had spent twenty minutes on the same thing with no progress whatsoever.

"Dad," Aria said, uncertain at her dad's abilities. "Are you _sure_? We can help."

After more reassurance from Byron, Aria reluctantly turned away, threw her arm around her brother, and asked if he wanted to get ice cream. With that, the three of them left Byron in his lonesome, and Mike got to have some bonding time with the boyfriend he had punched once a long time ago.

…

Later that day, Aria walked in the bedroom in her robe while drying her tendrils of wet hair with a towel. Ezra was sitting at the desk staring intently at some paperwork, and Aria padded over to the bed, pressing her hand on the mattress. "Is this thing safe?" she asked, not trustworthy of her father's work.

"I think so," Ezra mumbled, still too absorbed with whatever he was reading. Shrugging her shoulders, Aria jumped onto the bed and waited for disaster to strike, but it didn't. She continued rubbing her hair and stared at Ezra, whose forehead was crinkled in concentration. "What are you reading there so raptly?" she inquired.

Ezra sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Just this contract I have to sign," he explained vaguely. "It's boring stuff."

Aria felt a little stung. "Boring stuff" in her book at that exact moment was Ezra's way of saying "you wouldn't understand this _adult_ stuff." Yes, he knew a lot more than her about living alone, but she also wanted to learn with him. Feeling rejected, Aria threw the towel on the floor and changed into her pajamas, striding to the bathroom to brush her teeth. When she closed the door, she unintentionally slammed it.

After staring at her reflection for a dragged-out bit of time, Aria emerged from the bathroom feeling less irritated. Some grudges just weren't worth holding on to—even though it still bothered her when the age difference between them peeked out. Mostly it was like it didn't exist, but other times it was so blatantly there she got a little scared until she was assured by Ezra that age was just a number. Besides, she'd always had been an advocate of that, and always would be even with miniscule holes of doubt.

It was ten thirty by the time Ezra had put away the paperwork and gotten ready for bed. Aria had been reading while waiting for him, but had been so sucked in by the words that she didn't even notice Ezra climb in next to her. He laid down and stared at her for a minute until he realized she wasn't going to say anything. "What are you reading?" he asked politely, pointing to the cover.

Aria was snapped out of her absorbed state and bookmarked the page, closing it so that Ezra couldn't see the cover. "Nothing interesting," she simply replied, setting the book on the nightstand and shutting off the lights.

After a moment of silence, Aria randomly brought up, "Do you think my dad did something to his bed?"

"I don't think so," Ezra responded honestly. "If he had purposefully assembled it wrongly, wouldn't it have broken by now?"

"I don't know." Aria moved and curled up next to him, her lips close to his. She batted her eyelashes, which were long enough to tickle the skin on his cheeks, her eyes a dark green in the dimness. "But it's cold, don't you think?"

A huge, bright smile overtook Ezra's lips, and he laughed softly when he realized where she was going with this. "Yeah," he whispered, and right when their lips were about to meet, the support came out from under them.

Aria screamed as the bed fell apart on the left side, causing them to tumble on top of each other. When the chaos calmed down, Aria found herself clinging on to Ezra's shirt, her nails digging into the skin of his shoulders.

"Well," Ezra said, holding her closer around her waist so their foreheads touched (he could feel her pulse racing under her skin) while also pulling the blankets over them. "It looks like we'll be sleeping on the floor tonight."


	5. Chapter 4

**A/N: Yeah, I thought I'd write more during break... But besides writing some of In the Garden of Eden, I didn't really write much of anything, so this story is running out of chapters to publish regularly. Finals are coming up, and I was caught up in some awesome books and TV shows this winter break. I can't make any promises about any of my writing (I'm a pretty bad updater, if you know me), but I hope you enjoy this chapter.**

* * *

><p><strong>Where We Are Supposed to Be<strong>

**Chapter 4**

_May 2022_

When Aria peeled her eyes open in the morning, the first thing she saw was the clock reading 9:34 AM in its irritating red font. Then she felt the pounding headache coming upon her from lack of sleep and she hid under the covers, burrowing her face into the pillow and reaching out for Ezra.

But he wasn't there. Just then Aria's nose caught up with her and the fresh scent of pancakes sizzling on a griddle wafted in the air. He wasn't in bed because he was making breakfast.

Aria threw the covers over her head and sat up while rubbing her aching forehead. "What are you doing up?" she called out, her nose scrunching up from the pain overtaking her brain.

Humming to himself, Ezra flipped a pancake and removed another one off the griddle and onto a plate. "I couldn't sleep, so I got up and texted Spencer."

"Why did you text Spencer?" Aria prodded, still kind of sleepy and disoriented, bringing her knees up to her chest and propping her chin on them.

"Because," Ezra went on like the answer was obvious. "Right now Spencer has custody of Daisy and I wanted to know if she slept okay."

A petite grin came over Aria's face after she combed her fingers through her knotted rat's nest of hair. She didn't realize it before, but it _was _the first time either of them had spent an entire night away from their daughter. She could understand why Ezra was anxious. "And?"

Ezra flipped another pancake onto the steaming stack and went over to the stove to check on the vegan bacon. Astounded, he explained, "She sent me an _entire_ update with times and everything." He read off, "'At three-oh-four AM, Daisy woke up and started crying, but promptly fell back asleep at three-oh-ten once I calmed her down.' 'At eight-thirty-seven, she woke up for the day. She ate a breakfast of bananas and dry cereal at eight-forty-six.'"

Aria scoffed and shook her head. "That sounds like Spencer."

"It kind of makes me sad, though," Ezra pondered aloud while turning off the griddle.

Meanwhile, Aria laid back in bed and stared at the ceiling. "What does?"

"That Daisy doesn't need us to get her through the night anymore. By the way Spencer described it, she didn't even seem upset that we were gone." With that confession out of the way, Ezra poked at a pancake with a fork and slammed it onto another plate for Aria.

When he returned to the bed with two plates in hand and sat down in front of her, Aria replied, "She's young, Ezra. She won't even remember any of this stuff. After she was born, I swear the only thing that she was _really_ comforted by was the sound of my heartbeat and our voices, because that's all she heard for nine months. Then it was just to see our faces. Now… All I can say is she still recognizes us as her parents, but maybe all she needs for comfort is familiar human touch, and she knows Spencer."

As she cut a piece of pancake and stuffed it in her mouth, Ezra sighed. "That was…poetic yet oddly true. Why are you always so right about everything?"

Aria smiled sweetly and stole a piece of vegan bacon off his plate. "That wasn't me, babe. Those were the countless books and movies when I was bedridden from pregnancy talking."

…

_September 2012_

Twisting her bracelet nervously, Aria glanced around the college campus flourishing with unfamiliar faces. It was her first day of college at NYU and she had no idea what to expect. She knew the campus because she'd toured it, but she still accepted the inevitability that she was going to get lost because the campus was just so big. Breathing in calmly, she took a step forward and started walking towards her first destination, which was physics with Professor Cooper.

As she padded across the circular stone pathway and under the arch, she found the first building she was expected in and realized too late that it was the wrong one. Because classes were starting, the place was slowly emptying out, but she needed to ask somebody, so she picked out the first person she saw, a man whose back was facing her.

"Excuse me," Aria spoke up politely while lightly tapping his shoulder. "I was wondering if you knew—"

He turned around and her jaw dropped open. It couldn't be. The sandy-blond hair, the green-blue eyes. But it was.

It was Riley, A.K.A. the guy she'd had the one-night stand with and had advised her to confront the jerk who'd smashed her heart. The same young man she'd rented a hotel room with and who hadn't stopped her from drowning her sorrows in alcohol, which was exactly what he had been doing, too.

"Riley?" she sputtered as it dawned on him and his eyes widened.

"Aria," he greeted her without any hesitation. A boyish grin spread over his lips, the ones she'd been all over in her drunk-induced state. "I don't think this is how a one-night stand works. You're never supposed to see the other person again, right?"

Aria's lips were still parted in shock, and she eventually snapped out of it and shook her head in agreement. "Yeah, but we shared a _bit_ more than a one-night stand."

"Oh, right. My homemade Beat-Up-A-Jerk card. Did you have to use that?"

Again Aria shook her head. "No. It turns out I didn't have to."

Riley raised one eyebrow in surprise. "Really? By the way you made it sound, that guy deserved a slap or two."

Aria bit her lip awkwardly. "Yeah, well, I never let him explain the full story."

Eying her up and down, Riley barely nodded his head. He then pointed at the schedule clasped in her tremulous hands. "Where are you headed?"

An anxious sweat that wasn't from the first day of school burned up Aria's body. Here was this sweet guy she'd carelessly slept with to get over Ezra and he was going to the same college she was. Clamping down on her lips, Aria glanced down at the paper. "Physics with Professor Cooper."

"Weird," Riley said with another playful smile. "That's where I'm headed, too."

As the two walked across campus to the class they were evidently going to be late for, Aria decided to make small talk. "I'm glad to see your parents didn't make you attend Syracuse," she piped up politely while adjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder.

"Well, they couldn't control me." He smiled down at her; he was a good eight inches taller than her. "I'm glad to see you're over that jerk."

Aria chose to keep Ezra a secret. Besides, even if she did mention she was living with a man named Ezra, she'd never told Riley _the jerk_'s name. "Me too. It was rough, but I got through it."

Once they reached the class, they halted at the door because as soon as they opened it class would begin and they wouldn't be allowed to talk until after class, and Aria wasn't sure if she wanted to catch up with him.

"I'll see you around then."

"Yeah," Aria croaked, still extremely uncomfortable with the situation. Maybe it would be less painful to see Riley if she'd told Ezra about him, but she never saw the need to.

He gave her one last dashing grin. "I'm glad I ran into you, Aria." With that, he put his hand on the door handle and pressed down, barging it open.

For a second Aria just stood outside her first class, completely dumbfounded, but then she straightened up and strode in, taking the first seat available.

Though she had no romantic or even platonic feelings for Riley, Aria knew that this might be more of a struggle than she'd originally thought. And she didn't understand why.

…

Once her classes were over, Aria numbly entered the apartment and threw her keys on the table waiting by the door. Why the heck was she letting _Riley_, a boy she'd only known for a day, get to her? The guilt, like always in situations where the truth had never been spilled, was consuming her.

But why was she guilty to begin with? She'd been single at the time. She'd needed a distraction. Therefore, there was no existent reason for guilt except that Ezra didn't know. And what good would it do for him anyway if he _did _know? They weren't together then; thus, it shouldn't break their relationship. She didn't even have to tell him, but if she did it would be more because she wanted him to know every aspect of her life, even the downs he wasn't there for.

It was only one o'clock and Ezra wasn't finished with work yet, so Aria stood on the balcony staring at the view for twenty minutes before deciding to go get some caffeine. During that time a new subject had dominated her mind and she had thought about how she was just a student with her parents paying for her education and Ezra had a career, bills he could pay with his salary, and was practically supporting "their" new place—if she could even call it that since she wasn't supplying a cent to it. It hurt her, in a way, that she was not able to balance their new lifestyle; it seemed like he was doing most of the heavy lifting. But for Ezra, maybe her presence was enough, and it wasn't like he was financially struggling.

She went to the nearest café and ordered a vanilla soy latte, pondering whether she should apply for a job or not. There was a "Now Hiring" sign when she'd entered the café; maybe she could work here? There was a library around the corner. Would they be looking for fresh-faced students to liven up the dusty shelves? She was so distracted by her roaming thoughts, she didn't notice she'd almost spilled her order on someone. "I'm so sorry!" she spluttered as she was able to balance the drink in her hand before things got out of control.

The woman whose clothes she'd almost stained had lightly placed her hands on Aria's shoulders to prevent a tumble. "Whoa," she'd exclaimed, and once Aria had gotten a grip, she'd dropped her hands to the side. "It's fine. No accident, no reason to be sorry."

With a flushed face Aria mumbled out an "oh." "Well, I still stumbled into you. Wanderings thoughts…"

"No, I understand. You're talking to one of the clumsiest people on the planet." The young woman gave Aria her hand. "I'm Jordan."

"Aria." They shook hands.

Jordan's red, shiny hair tumbled to the side as she tilted her head suspiciously. "You look familiar. Do you happen to be a student at NYU?"

"Y-yes," Aria stammered, still a bit flustered. "Yeah, I had my first couple classes today."

"Let me guess," Jordan said, putting a finger to her chin. "American Literature with Professor Callahan?"

"Oh, are you in that class?" Aria inquired politely. "I haven't really talked to or met many people yet. The only person I know is Riley, and 'know' is an overstatement."

"Riley? Riley Burns?" Aria nodded and Jordan grinned. "We go way back! I'm the one who convinced him to apply to NYU and ditch Syracuse. He told you about his family, right?" Again Aria nodded. "So, how do you know him?"

About to answer the question, Aria parted her lips, but Jordan halted her. "Before you answer that, would you like to sit down?"

"Uh…" Aria glanced at the clock and saw that it was only 2:30. She had some time to kill. "Sure!"

After the two took a table next to the windows, Aria said, "Riley and I met at Syracuse, actually. See, my dad taught some classes there, and we met—" Aria paused, not sure how much she should tell. "—at a frat party."

"Real classy," Jordan replied with a snort. "Riley _loves _parties. How about you?"

"Oh, well, I've been to a few in my lifetime, but they're not my favorite pastime. I prefer more intimate, quieter nights in."

"But what would you say if I invited you to a frat party next week?" Jordan asked boldly, her green eyes glinting. "We could both use a new college friend, right?"

Aria was shocked at how rash Jordan was. At first, she was immediately ready to say no—to the party, not to Jordan—but she chewed on her bottom lip and thought about it. Lately Ezra had been on her tail about everything college: Talk to people with your same major, beware rowdy college parties, be sure to make a bond with your professors—it'll help a _lot _in the long run. Whenever he droned on about his college experiences, Aria felt a twinge pluck at her stomach. It really made her overthink the "age is just a number" mantra she'd lived by, and it also made her nerves itch. She'd been meaning to tell him that she should have her own college learning experiences and that he sounded a lot like her lecturing father, but she bit her tongue. Maybe, she thought, she was getting too easily irked by it.

Ezra warned her about the frat parties, and she truly loved Ezra, but Aria needed a night out with herself and away from Ezra's life lessons in college. "Sure," she chirped before she could rethink it over. "Count me in."

…

That night after dinner, Aria was huddled under a blanket on the couch reading _The Great Gatsby _for the tenth time. She was on the last chapter, her eyes tearing up as her compassionate side felt torn-up by Gatsby's poorly attended funeral (yes, he was a creepy stalker who is given too much sympathy by readers and Daisy too much criticism and hateful judgment, but what if that was what _her _funeral was like?), when Ezra audibly sighed. Instantly Aria's shoulders tensed and she felt irritated, the emotional moment broken.

"You know what I hate about teaching English?" Ezra pondered out loud. Pursing her lips, Aria bookmarked her page and silently placed it on the side table. "Having to read all these 'get-to-know-me-better' letters and realizing just how terrible these students are with spelling and grammar."

Aria grinned softly, though it was barely perceptible on her lips. "Well, if anyone could fix that, it would be you."

Absorbed in his work, Ezra murmured a simple "mmm" in reply. Aria took that as a sign to return to her book, but Ezra continued. "Did you meet anyone new today?"

"Yeah," Aria responded, exhaling the pent-up air she wasn't aware she was holding in her lungs. "Jordan and…Riley."

"I'd be aware of the boys you meet, though," Ezra advised. The poor guy had no idea he was making Aria's eye twitch, yet how could he have any inkling when Aria has been keeping her mouth shut? They could both read each other like a book, but even that had its limits. He wasn't aware that Aria had been paying so much attention lately to their drastically different lifestyles; overall, he assumed he was helping with his advice, and was distracted by the beginning of the school year. "I had a friend once back in my college days. She was extremely nice but super gullible, so one day she was at a frat party and…"

Aria zoned him out as she bundled herself in her damaging thoughts. Should she have heeded her mom's strong recommendation to apply for a roommate and live on campus while visiting Ezra whenever she wanted to? Would postponing the apartment have made Aria want Ezra more or less since she'd be around people her age more often? What was happening now that wasn't there when she was in high school?

What made her so sure that this was going to work out?

"…I hate to be a party crasher, but when Jackie called and told me she couldn't find Jamie I had to do something—"

"Ezra," Aria spoke up thoughtlessly in the middle of his story. Ezra stopped babbling and looked up at her innocently. Slightly guilty, Aria lied and said, "I think you've told me this story before."

"Oh, I have?" He squinted his eyes in deep thought. "Maybe I have! Hm. I must be getting old."

A pang ran through Aria's veins and she noticed how amazing sleep sounded right now. Grabbing her book, she stood up and padded over to him. "It's been a long day, so…I'm going to go to bed."

"Okay," Ezra said softly, contently, lovingly. Envious, Aria wondered why she couldn't be more carefree and stop overthinking the details of her life choices. "Good night."

Quickly she kissed him on the cheek and scampered away, ashamed. While lying in bed she retraced her steps in her brain and noticed her annoyance had spiked after running into Riley. Maybe he reminded her of what society wanted in her: a man her own age, just another student she could study with and enjoy the same experiences together. Or maybe it was from starting her first day and panicking because change was occurring in her life, and that in moving from Rosewood to a different location she couldn't avoid a perfect relationship from tearing apart. Either way, Aria was feeling very confused and conflicted, and the worst part was that it all had to come crashing down in a single day.

Aria was still wide awake when Ezra went to bed, but she closed her eyes and pretended she was asleep. She heard the snap of the light switch turning off and some rustling as Ezra searched for a comfortable sleeping position, one arm wrapping around her waist. Aria's muscles tightened and her pulse went up despite wishing them not to.

Ten minutes later she could hear his soft breathing and tenderly placed her hand over his. A warm, tingly feeling passed through her as Ezra unconsciously entwined their fingers in his sleep.

For Aria, it felt like a soulmate connection. But in all honesty…what did she know about soulmates?


	6. Chapter 5

**Where We Are Supposed to Be**

**Chapter 5**

A week dragged by and Aria kept struggling with adapting to college life and dealing with the conflicts that were arising on her side of her relationship with Ezra. Ezra kept dropping hints and tips on how to get through college, occasionally complaining about his job Aria couldn't personally relate to, and a single thought kept rising into her mind: What would it be like to be with a college boy?

She knew from past experience that whenever she'd tried to date a guy her age, she'd never felt for them like she felt for Ezra. Then again, it was never about age, but there was something about worldlier guys, young men who were mature and experienced and passionate, and not that many boys like that existed in her age range. Could a college guy hold that for her? Probably not, but Aria thought about it anyway, not interested in dating because she was already in a committed relationship yet wanting to experiment at the same time so she could convince herself that she was making the right decisions.

After school that Friday, Aria stood in front of the mirror hanging in the living room fixing her makeup. Ezra said he was going to be late because of a faculty meeting, so Aria had scarfed down some leftover takeout before heading to her closet to find an outfit for the frat party tonight—something she still hadn't told Ezra about.

Right then the door opened and it was Ezra, boyishly happy to see her. "Hey," he greeted her as he set down his satchel and shook off his coat, "want to order out and watch a—" He looked up again and noticed Aria' s dark makeup and flow-y dress. "Oh," he said, upset. He shoved his hands in his pockets. "Are you going somewhere?"

Aria bit her lip and glanced down at her painted toes. This was the confrontation she hadn't prepared for. "Um, yeah," she uttered as she closed the cap on her tube of lip gloss. "Jordan and I are going to dinner. She asked me today and I said why not," she lied before she could think her way through.

Daring to shift her eyes up, Aria saw Ezra's disappointment and pushed away any creeping feelings of guilt. "When will you be back?" he asked in a slightly dead voice while he took out the scotch bottle from the cabinet. Maybe, she wondered, Ezra had had a bad day at work and had looked forward to seeing her tonight. Maybe his exhilarant entrance was just a charade. Maybe Ezra was hiding his true feelings just like Aria was.

Nervous, Aria played with the multiple rings on her fingers. "Only for a few hours." She glanced up at the clock and grabbed her purse. "I better go…"

"Okay," Ezra replied as Aria opened the door. Her eyes met his for a minute and she could feel how difficult it was for him to keep up the act that he was truly supportive of her going out for the night, like he hadn't been planning on spending it with her. Aria's heart fell deep into her chest. Here was Ezra, supporting her despite disproval—and then there was Aria, pondering about whether living with Ezra was the right choice, lying to him about where she was going because she felt like he was telling her what to do since he'd already lived through college, and not even talking to him about the confusion and uncertainty she was feeling even though they'd promised to tell each other the truth a long time ago. "See you later."

"Yeah," Aria whispered, forcing a smile on her face to block the sadness in her eyes. "See you later."

She quietly closed the door, Ezra taking a large gulp of scotch, the only friend he would have tonight, as soon as the lock had clicked.

…

Aria arrived at the frat house forty minutes later after having stopped by Jordan's condo, who she was sharing with two other girls, to carpool with her. The both of them hauled a taxi and laughed hysterically about everything and nothing to the point that Aria started to believe she might actually have a decent time tonight after all.

The two college girls linked arms as they stumbled out of the taxi and followed small groups of people all heading to the frat house. They wrapped an arm around each other's shoulders and tripped all the way there.

When they arrived at their destination, Aria and Jordan were greeted by a group of junior men on the porch, catcalling every girl that walked by. Aria giggled despite the discomfort she felt, an icky feeling crawling up her spine, but Jordan just waved them off. "Don't let the rowdy college boys get to you," she said, tugging on Aria's arm. "Now come on. I want you to meet someone."

The entire house was crowded with people playing beer pong, chatting in their respective groups, and making out with each other. It was exactly like any other frat party Aria had been to, oddly similar to the one she'd attended with Ali and her friends almost five years ago. Strangely, it made her miss Spencer, Hanna, and Emily just that much more.

Jordan caught sight of someone and pulled Aria through the mass of people, the stale air smelling stronger of alcohol the farther they went in. "Riley! Ashton!" Jordan called as they came into the kitchen.

Aria's foot caught on something and she almost went down, but an arm caught her shoulder and fixed her balance. When she looked up, it was Riley, a familiar red cup in his hand. One corner of his mouth was turned up and Aria could tell he was in the beginning stages of getting drunk. "Good to see you," he yelled past the blasting music and chatting people.

Gulping, Aria only nodded her head, feeling shy and reserved. "Aria, this is Ashton," Jordan said while gesturing to a handsome man with gelled-back hair and dark-framed glasses.

"Nice to meet you," Ashton said and held out his hand for Aria to shake.

"You too," Aria responded kindly and took his hand in hers.

Ashton immediately took notice of the ring on her left hand. "Oh, are you engaged?" he asked innocently.

Aria glanced down at her hands and shook her head. "No, no. I just wear a lot of rings. This one was my grandmother's."

"But Aria _is _living with someone!" Jordan piped up, and Aria sent her warning glares. Riley's eyebrows wrinkled and Aria had a tiny sense that he was bothered by that fact. "I'm sorry, but I had to say it!"

Ten minutes later Aria stared boringly out the kitchen window as Jordan, Riley, and Ashton conversed. She kept thinking about how hurt Ezra had seemed before she'd left and was reminded of how this party scene had never been her thing no matter how many she went to. Just as she thought that, Ashton said, "These things aren't really my thing, but Jordan just likes trying new things." He directed his attention to Aria, who snapped out of her trance as he began talking. "We usually hang out at the bookstore café, but Jordan likes to drag me to these parties every once in a while."

"Hey, at least now you'll be able to say you tried it! But Riley, my man, I would say you need to lay off these frat celebrations, don't you think so?"

Riley shrugged his shoulders and reached for another drink. "I don't know, Jordan, I'm having a pretty good time!" The three of time laughed while Aria took a sip of the watery beer, feeling a bit buzzed since it was her second one and she was light as a pixie.

"Come on, let's go play Spin the Bottle!" Jordan exclaimed and commenced to herd the threesome into the living room despite their protests. "Oh, don't be such whiners! It's a kids' game, is it not? So it should be easy!"

But none of them had ended up joining the packed game. Instead, they watched from the sidelines and made bets on who the bottle was going to land on. Whenever they lost, they had to drink. As she drained another cup Aria began to loosen up, realizing this was her night and nothing and no one could stop her.

At that moment someone stood up and knocked into Aria, who in turn stumbled back and fell onto Riley's lap; Riley had been sitting on the couch's arm and exclaimed in surprised when Aria plopped onto him. "Just like old times, huh?"

Throwing the empty cup into the mass of people, Aria giggled and put one hand over her mouth while the other snaked around Riley's neck. "Oh yeah, this is exactly like old times!"

Riley opened his mouth to say something when "Domino" by Jessie J started blaring through the speakers and Aria jumped off of him and grabbed his arm. "Come on!" she squealed, dragging him into the crowd with a devious smirk. "Dance with me!"

As the song went on, Jordan shook her head at the sight of Riley and Aria dancing. "She's wasted," she said with a sigh and a tsk.

"I hope she doesn't do anything stupid," Ashton piped up. "Didn't you say she's living with someone?"

"Yeah…" Jordan drew out the word then trailed off. She got up off the couch and screamed, "Hey Aria, Riley!"

Aria looked at Jordan and began waving her arm frantically. "Hey!" she yelled, then went back to dancing crazily.

"Come over here!" Jordan commanded them, becoming slightly nervous of her new friend's condition. Riley grabbed Aria's arm and led her back to Jordan and Ashton, Aria a mess of laughter. There was a beer stain on her dress and her hair was slightly frazzled.

"But Jordan!" Aria whined. "We were having so much fun!"

"_You_ need to sit down," Jordan ordered Aria and guided her to the couch.

Aria pouted her pink lips and murmured, "But I want to sit on Riley's lap…"

Immediately Jordan sat her down, hands on Aria's shoulders, and looked her straight in the eye. "Hey, is something going on? Or have you forgotten that you're in a serious relationship?"

Rolling her eyes, Aria shook her head as Riley plopped down next to her. "No!" she sputtered. "I'm just trying to have some fun, okay?"

Unconvinced, Jordan cocked her head. "I've only known you for a week, sweetie, and I know this isn't you."

Rudely Aria waved off Jordan and focused her attention on Riley, her lips curling up suggestively. "At least we're not drunk enough to get a room, huh?" She laid her hand on his thigh, and Riley didn't even stop her.

Ashton and Jordan's eyes widened and Jordan was ready to lose it. "Hey, Aria," she said, clapping her hands between the two drunk "lovebirds." "Do you not realize that there is a man who is _crazy _for you back home and if you go any farther it will be considered cheating?" From what Aria had told Jordan about her relationship, it seemed very serious and very romantic, Jordan having commented, "Dang, where'd you find this guy, out of a romance novel?"

Suddenly a memory flicked on in Aria's drunken brain: Wes leaning in and pecking her on the lips while she had been dating, despite the hectic circumstances, Ezra. She remembered breaking up with Jake after having broken his heart, admitting to the poor guy that she had cheated on him with her ex, and seeing her dad with Meredith in his car. Aria had learned and seen enough from cheating to know that it was an awful experience to hurt someone like that, though she had never been on the other end. It tore apart families and hearts, and all because of one lustful slip-up.

The lights clicked on in Aria's hazy head and she leaned away from Riley, lips parted, her pupils contracting in surprise. "I'm sorry, I need to go," she uttered quickly and climbed off the couch, fighting through the crowd.

Jordan jumped up to stop Aria but Ashton held her back, the both of them sharing similar worried expressions. "Give her a minute," he advised her, then mumbled, more to himself, "I knew we should have just went to the café."

As Aria stormed out of the house, the boys whistled at her again, and Aria put a name to the disgusting feeling she had felt before: violation. "Hey, pretty thing," they called at her. "Wanna pull an all-nighter?"

Panicked—it was exactly like the texts she'd received her senior year from horny high school boys who thought she was the school slut—Aria ran off the porch and around the corner, slowing down on the sidewalk. Pulling out her phone, she shakily dialed Ezra's number and attempted—but failed—at holding back her tears. "Ezra," she cried as soon as he picked up, and she put up a hand to cover her face.

"Aria?" Ezra said on the other end, audibly concerned. "Is something wrong?"

"I need you to get me," she croaked. "I'm at a frat party."

Silence. Aria swallowed the lump in her throat, knowing that he was disappointed in her. "I'll be right there," he said and quickly hung up.

As Aria waited in the chilly air, hugging herself to keep warm, Jordan came up behind her. "Hey, are you okay?" she asked kindly and soothingly.

Aria pursed her lips bitterly and shook her head. "No!" she confessed. "I came to New York thinking my boyfriend and I could finally move on from all the conflicts we had back home, but now I'm second-guessing everything." A tear slid down her cheek and onto her lips; she could taste the salty substance. "God, why can't we be in peace? Ever since I started college I've been thinking about what it would be like to date someone my own age and escape the age difference that makes me feel so childish next to him. And _I _used to be the one talking him out of making a big deal out of meaningless numbers." She scoffed, shaking her head. "I don't even know who the heck I am anymore. The Aria I knew back home wouldn't give a care as long as I had Ezra and myself."

Conciliatorily, Jordan put an arm around Aria's shoulder. "Typically this is where someone says, 'Things will get better,' but I'm going to be honest with you, Aria. Starting college is a huge life transformation, and it's normal to be confused right now and doubt every decision you've ever made. Maybe…maybe you and Ezra should take a break."

Right at that moment a car pulled up and Ezra jumped out of the front seat. Aria's initial thought if it was a normal day, which it wasn't, would have been, "When did you buy a car? Who buys a car in New York City?" but she didn't even acknowledge the vehicle.

"Is she okay?" Ezra asked Jordan as he shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it around Aria. Jordan shook her head.

"She's drunk and has some problems to sort out," she said, brutally honest. She then returned to Aria. "Hey, text me when you feel better, okay?"

Aria nodded her head weakly and followed Ezra to the car where she got into the passenger seat. It was definitely recently bought with the "new car" smell. Ezra started the engine and drove off, away from the noisy campus.

For a few minutes there was nothing but silence, save for the traffic outside. Ezra drove with a strict expression on his countenance, his lips a straight line and his eyes hard. Glazed over, Aria stared out the passenger window, her pounding head leaning against the cool glass.

Eventually Ezra pulled into an empty alley away from the busy streets and parked there, switching off the ignition. A moment of silence passed again, but Ezra broke it. "What's been going on, Aria?"

Aria gulped and kept her eyes on the brick wall outside. "A lot of stuff."

"Aria," Ezra said more strictly. "Please talk to me."

"Fine!" Aria exploded, surprised by her outburst. "I went out to party because I wanted to forget."

"Forget what?"

"My second thoughts on our relationship, my life, everything!"

Ezra was stunned, unsure. He cleared his throat then promptly prodded, "What do you mean?"

"I mean we've been living in New York for a month now and I'm not sure if that was the right decision on my part," Aria ranted, fuming yet broken at the same time. Basically, she was a mess, and couldn't control the random, flying thoughts spewing from her mouth. "You're suppressing me, okay, from experimenting and learning my own way—"

"I'm not the bad guy here, Aria. Or I'm trying not to be."

"Well, it sure seems like you're always telling me what to do! Don't go to parties, make sure your professors know you exist, have a rape whistle handy at all times…"

"Aria, those are just tidbits, not commands. Look, I understand if you want to experiment, but the lack of communication is what—"

"Ezra, look, I'm confused, okay? I'm sorry but I'm not sorry." She started listing on her fingers. "I'm sorry that our age difference has been bothering me, I'm not sorry I slept with Riley, but I am sorry for not telling you about it…"

Hurt, Ezra's hands curled around the wheel, his fingers turning white. "What?"

Realizing her mistake, Aria shook her head and, suddenly calmer, explained, "No, it's not what you think." She paused and sighed, trying to think of the right words to say. "After we broke up—well, more like _blew_ up—I got drunk at a college party and had a one-night stand with this guy my age named Riley. He goes to NYU now, but Ezra, I promise, there's no romantic connection between us. It was just a fling, a distraction I needed after I was hurt."

"Oh," Ezra croaked dryly. The unease he'd felt before was still there, but in a less powerful form. In absolute honesty, he was bothered by Aria being so intimate with somebody else, sharing something that should have been cherished and not flung away for any guy to have, that she had been driven to that because of his errors. It made him upset that he wasn't her one and only anymore. But then Ezra realized that he and Aria had been broken up and he wasn't a part of her life at that point, and her decisions were completely her own, and he should try to respect that. "You didn't have to share that with me—"

"I know," Aria interrupted like she had so many times already. "But I needed to. It just took me a few cups of beer to spill it out." There was a pause, and Aria whispered, "I want you to know me, Ezra. Every bit of me, even the careless drunkard part. But now, everything feels so different, like the pink-haired Aria who'd grown into her own skin and became her own woman is someone else and not me…"

The two reverted back to silence as Ezra collected his thoughts and processed them. His head was aching and pounding and he was certain he was going to have an aneurysm. Why hadn't Aria told him she'd felt this way? He'd been the idiot, coming home to their apartment every day and waking up to her every morning and believing their relationship was so impeccable and unbreakable. Hadn't he been a college student once too? Couldn't he understand the struggle of that giant leap from a life so protected to one open with so many possibilities?

Finally, he reasoned with himself and said slowly, "Aria, your thoughts aren't anything to be ashamed of. If you had just talked to me—"

"I didn't know how, Ezra!" Aria yelled, going right back to exploding. "How was I supposed to tell you that for the first time in a very, very long time, I was actually noticing the age gap between us? After all that fighting we'd done to get to this point and a stupid number was getting in our way? That the person you fell in love with might not be the same anymore?"

Again, Ezra paused to process, and a memory tickled his brain from the beginning of their relationship. "Aria, remember 'forget about theory'? You were the one telling me—"

"But I'm not that girl in high school anymore, Ezra, don't you get it?" Aria screamed, her eyes wide as saucers and silent tears trickling down her porcelain face lit up by the moon. "We came out here together because I thought it would work. But living in this apartment together, being away from Rosewood… Maybe it's not supposed to. Maybe age _is _more than just a number. And being in high school, protected from the adult world, I didn't…I didn't _see_ that."

Ezra's mouth moved, but no sound came out. The silence lapsed for a minute, the energy draining out of Aria, before Ezra spoke again. He felt himself crumbling, but he had to stay calm, for Aria's sake. "I can assure you, Aria, that you're the same woman I fell in love with. You're struggling, and with time we can work through this—"

"I don't know if I want to work through this," Aria confessed, her heart sinking in her chest. She reached up and smeared her already dripping makeup across her hand. "At least, not now."

"Are you suggesting we—"

"Take a break?" Aria finished for him. She nodded. "Yeah. I think so."

Numbly Ezra shifted the car into drive and turned around and back onto the street. Aria sat in her seat, her shoulders shaking as she suppressed the whimpers creeping up her throat. She didn't want to cry anymore; she just wanted a time machine to go back to the day she'd graduated, before the changes had happened.

They were silent the rest of the way home. There was nothing left to say.


End file.
